


diplomat's son

by caesarions



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adulthood, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Politics, Diplomacy, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Italy, M/M, Multi, Post-Divorce, Reunions, Secret Relationship, Sneaking Around, Summer Romance, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesarions/pseuds/caesarions
Summary: ♫ That night I smoked a joint / with my best friend / we found ourselves in bed / when I woke up, he was gone / he was a diplomat's son / it was '81 / he was a diplomat's son / it was '81. ♫But life is much more than a song, as emotions cannot wrapped up in a neat little bow after a few minutes. It is messy, it is raw, and your first love will follow you around forever.And sometimes, if you are lucky enough, it will return.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the Hetalia Writers' Discord OTP event! i've had this idea on the back-burner for a while, but i always thought it was too esoteric to post. however, the event gave me the courage because it fit so nicely with the prompts! if you didn't realize yet, it's inspired by the song "Diplomat's Son" by Vampire Weekend, both using that setting idea and what i think would happen in the future. all rights go to the band, so please give it a listen. it's a real banger! although, i think Ezra Koenig's original was about sexual tension at boarding school, and Rostam Batmanglij's original was a love story in Washington D.C., but songs are meant to be interpreted (i.e. i entirely forgo the last stanza of the song that makes it end unhappily, lmao). 
> 
> the prompts from the event chosen for this chapter were "Summer" + "We should’ve been honest with each other from the start.”
> 
> last but not least, i have a pinterest board for you to get a visual of the AU at https://www.pinterest.com/ciervosu/au-diplomats-son/. 
> 
> NAMES (updated from canon to fit modern times): 
> 
> china - wang min
> 
> rome - luca prisco
> 
> ancient greece - eleni athanasiou
> 
> and the human npcs are just random and mean nothing and are based off of no one sorry italian gov't please don't kill me

Three piercing jabs greeted Luca’s shoulder, forcing him to turn around from the bar. Luca swiveled in his stool to face Senator Giuseppe Bianchi—the fat one, not the balding one. It was easy to get them confused.

“Prisco!” Bianchi shouted, throwing his arms up. A biblical wave of blood-red wine was dangerously close to hitting a woman’s shoulder. She jumped away like a wounded animal, her champagne cocktail dress—quite tacky, Luca thought—apparently a gift from the Wise Men. “We’ve got a new one in town. He’s here tonight.”

Luca squinted suspiciously. He scanned the immediate crowd at the palazzo, blocking out the classical music to focus. “Did someone get fired and reappointed? Elections were in May. It’s J—”

A fat, wagging sausage was shoved in Luca’s face. “Not one of our own. A new ambassador. He came here with Foreign Affairs.”

Luca turned his back to Bianchi, trying to repair his night. It was going well so far, since Luca couldn’t remember who was hosting the party at this palazzo and why. “I’d rather get drunk than talk to those bastards.”

Despite the clear dismissal, the senator grabbed his arm and heaved him up. “You deal with that ministry daily! Come on.”

“That’s why I don’t want to after hours,” Luca grumbled, but Bianchi was already halfway across the ballroom floor. Going to grab his glass of whiskey to take with him, Luca found it already empty. When had that happened?

He sighed joylessly and followed the older man through the sea of bodies. Maybe one of the crystal chandeliers dangling from the vaulted ceilings would fall and only hit members of the Lega Nord. They always caused him trouble.

Luca had to fill his empty hands. On the trek across the gold checkered flooring, he grabbed cocktail sandwiches from multiple waiters’ platters and stuffed his face accordingly. Ugh, did that one really use _salami_? They all had money here.

Good old Giuseppe didn’t babble too much. They came upon the group of strangers pretty quickly, backs turned to the approaching Italians. The men stood out to Luca because of their non-Italian suits and skinny frames. Various deputies were in the process of charming them, but both the jokes and laughs sounded anywhere from sickeningly saccharine to forced at gunpoint. Though, it was hard to tell from behind.

But when they turned around is when Luca would not get to enjoy his final cocktail sandwich. Making the sound of a dying animal, Luca’s hand froze as if cramping, and the sandwich fell softly to the floor.

“Oh,” the Chinese man in the middle exclaimed, with no discernible intonation. The sandwich had landed in the middle of the two groups. One blank smile later, the man leaned down and delicately pinched the toothpick between two ivory fingertips. His shoulder-length, corvine ponytail fell like a waterfall over his shoulder before slapping the air as he rose.

He glanced to the side. Almost immediately, another Chinese man stepped forward and took the waste. He set out at a desperate shuffle for the nearest garbage can. The original man folded his arms in front of him calmly.

“Everyone, this is our Minister of Defense, Luca Prisco,” Bianchi began, with a noticeable look at Luca’s gaping expression. “I said I’d be back with him, at your request, Mr. Wang.”

Mr. Wang’s face held a flash of annoyance. Without any explanation or warning, he stepped forward and offered Luca his hand. “Charmed.”

This time, his voice was honeyed, drawn out. Luca took the hand, finding that it was just as velvety soft as he remembered—if this was the correct Mr. Wang. He was almost uncomfortably cognizant of the man’s shining, almond eyes boring holes into him.

“And you just met Min Wang, recently appointed to be the Italian ambassador. Right after your father, wasn’t it?” Bianchi continued, as jovial as ever.

 _Oh_.

He had been right.

The name tore Luca into shreds.

“There was someone menial between us,” Min shrugged. They stopped shaking hands while Min talked, but Min’s fingers lingered, the tips slowly dragging across Luca’s entire palm before dropping. “But I just could not stay away.”

You could! You could, though! Luca wanted to yell, the sentiment bubbling up inside of him. Instead, he mumbled, “It’s Wang Min.”

Bianchi raised an eyebrow. “What?”

There was a silvery laugh, and Luca blinked when he discovered Min as its source. “It is,” Min agreed, giggling behind a hand. “That is indeed the correct order. But _I_ was not going to tell him.”

Luca flushed noticeably in his ears and adjusted his curls accordingly. Taking advantage of the beat of silence, Bianchi stepped forward and blocked Luca from sight after throwing out an arm. The Chinese and deputies were all roped into listening because Bianchi’s booming voice simply could not be ignored, not because his words held any merit. The conversation moved on without either of them, but Min’s eyes remained steadily on Luca, turning deceptively soft.

It was the most agonizing five minutes in Luca’s entire life. They had not even moved to an open seating venue, so Luca had to shuffle back and forth, Fendi loafers squeaking like mice on the marble. He had no liquid courage, so he folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs. He listened to Bianchi mispronounce Guangzhou and be confidently on the wrong side of the Hainan Island argument.

At some point, Min had stopped looking at him. How it could be cold in a pair of eyes’ absence, Luca knew not. But the classical music pounded in his ears, and the Swarovski lighting became yellow and heady. Even the very sight of Min was demanding his heart and soul react. Min remained completely unchanged. Had Luca gained too many wrinkles, his hair greyed unattractively? Surely not, for he has just stolen the title of the youngest Minister of Defense in Italy’s history. But Min’s healthy midnight black hair and smooth, moon-pale face were on a level that Luca could not reach.

...Well, maybe he dyed it.

Catching Luca off-guard, Min’s eyes almost sliced him in half when Min looked back. The dark orbs rested on Luca, checking him out up and down before departing. Luca felt naked. It was a beckon that not even a blind man could miss.

Min excused himself, floating above the sea of people, the waters almost parting for him, not that Moses had ever looked so good before. Luca saw Min and his bopping ponytail head for the nearest open balcony. His heart seized in his chest, and Luca mumbled something about leaving before making a full sprint across the ballroom floor. The waters did not part for Luca; unlike Moses, his journey was born from useless teenage fantasy.

Summer was just beginning outside, and the winds were kind. Nature was on Min’s side as the breeze gently arrayed Min’s ponytail, blacker than even his suit. His youthful glow made the peach walls of the palazzo turn sickly pallid in comparison.

Eyes on Min, Luca latched the rainbow stained glass dividers shut behind him. Still, Luca marched forward, anger building within him with every step. He retrieved a La Escepción from the cartridge in his pocket, thankful he remembered to stop at Fincato that morning to do some restocking. Without the Cuban cigar in hand, Luca wouldn’t get this through this conversation. He stepped carefully and quietly until the courtyard was below, stuffed to the brim with grandiose fountains and lemon trees.

Min didn’t even change his posture as Luca approached, but all of Luca’s anger flooded out of him at the sight of Min’s face. It was almost impossible to remain angry when met with the calm, familiar visage. Luca stumbled with his lighter and only barely made it out unscathed.

After one drag, he turned to Min, completely boneless. “...Your hair is still long.”

Min faced Luca and smiled with teeth for the first time that night. “You always liked it like that.”

True to form, Luca’s free hand had a mind of its own, already running through the silk strands. Mouth hanging open, his eyes drifted shut from a rush of a sentiment. He began to whisper.

“It’s been twenty years.”

Luca’s only response was an expectant, bony hand. Without protest, he placed the Cuban cigar in Min’s hand and waited. The image was almost funny, if he thought about it—the cigar was blunt, dark, and almost two times the size of any of Min’s fingers. But his exhale was no more than a fluffy, cloud-soft sigh.

Any humor died when Min’s cloud of smoke began to float above them. Eventually, Luca realized that Min had moved closer and faced him fully. It was an unpleasant reminder that Luca was still the shorter of the two—nothing had changed there—but Min was pressing himself against Luca by now. His gaze was gently adamant, and the Italian sunset turned his eyes from near black to a dirty rose.

Luca lunged.

Min’s lips were pink and pliant, and he didn’t taste like hard whiskey like Luca did. He tasted like vanilla gelato on a cliff side in the summer of ‘81.

Luca was half-worried about dropping the cigar until he realized he wasn’t the one holding it. Figuring that out, he buried his hands knuckles-deep into Min’s hair, even pulling pieces out of the front in desperation. Min must not have minded, because he was opening his mouth as wide as it could go, pressing his full lips against Luca’s stubble when Luca wanted access to his neck.

He heard scratching on Min’s precious skin from his stubble, and Luca was surprised that he didn’t ruin one of Min’s buttons while tearing at his shirt. Pressing his nose into Min’s collarbones, the sharp scent of Min’s foreign cologne grounded him in the present. It reminded Luca that this was happening. His heart lurched dangerously, and he spread the dress shirt’s collar to hide it.

Min’s hands ended up cradling his head at some point. One was tangling in his curls, and the other provided the heat of the cigar nearby. Secretly, Luca hoped he could get Min to smell like his cigars. The scents were already volatilely mixing in his mind. He could hear Min gasping for breath, breaking off when Luca left a bite. Luca himself was heaving and forcing them closer together. And Min was doing the same thing, slowly jumping up Luca until he wasn’t standing on his own anymore. Luca couldn’t help but smirk at the lack of self-control.

It was in the middle of one of Min’s delicious cries that a round of thunderous applause broke out inside, and both men’s blood ran cold. Min ended by clearing his throat and jumping back almost the length of the entire balcony. Luca stood his ground, though straightened his back and cast his eyes down.

Of course. What had they expected out of this? They were acting like teenagers again.

But when Luca glanced up, he saw Min fingering the end of his ponytail with despondent eyes. The front was completely frayed, almost close to the loose bedhead that Luca remembered fondly. Min’s sinewy shoulders rose up and down as he noticeably tried to hide his heavy breathing. His cheeks and jawline were rosy from irritation, his lips cherry; with Min’s collar open, Luca could see the marks he’d left low on the slender neck. But the collarbone was empty, dammit.

Suddenly, Luca didn’t feel so shameful.

Min was the first to step closer again, leaning down to press their noses together. Luca noticed his eyes wet and even warmer than ever before. “Come to my room tonight.”

The blunt demand would have bothered anyone else. Instead, Luca nuzzled forward. “Where?”

“The apartment building across from the embassy,” Min said, his breath tickling Luca’s chin like luxurious down feathers. “Ask for me.”

Luca was in the middle of saying that might not be the best idea when Min whipped around, ponytail slapping Luca across the face. The stained glass doors creaked open, and the rest of the world was revealed to the two of them. Music and chatter invaded Luca’s perception all at once, and he blinked at Min for being able to walk in so quickly. Min’s entire posture and demeanor changed—he straightened his back, flipped the switch on for niceties, and complimented a lady on her gown in perfect Italian.

…He had taken Luca’s cigar with him.

 

Later on in the night, Luca was fortunate enough to find Min wooing a group of senators and spy on him. He had only buttoned one out of three buttons, his collar sticking out every which way. As his magnum opus, Min had only taken the time to fix his now immaculate hair. But, besides that, he could catch a faint dusting of pink across Min’s cheeks and a few bewildered or yearning gazes. Luca watched over another whiskey from his table in the corner with interest.

“And that’s why I never go to Sardinia in the summer,” Senator Puglisi explained while waving the cheapest champagne available. He rudely pointed to Min’s hand. “Hey, you know, Prisco smokes those too. He loves those things.”

Min’s gaze hopped quickly from the cigar, to Luca hiding in the corner, to Puglisi. After getting over the initial cold wave of discovery, he glared at the potted plant in front of his table for not hiding him better. He watched as Min took one drag before giving a chipper answer as he exhaled.

“Does he?”

 

“I’m looking for Wang Min’s apartment,” Luca spat out gruffly, craning his face to the side until his neck tendons threatened to burst. He didn’t know if this landlady would recognize him. He didn’t know if anyone saw him enter.

“Min Wang? He was expectin’ someone. Top floor, 616.”

Luca could see her jowls wiggle even from his peripheral vision. Despite—or in spite of—all his precautions, she did not look up from her tabloid magazine even once. He could confidently sneak out in the morning just as easily.

And had anyone any culture in them? No one would say Min’s name correctly. Or was Luca the one trying too hard?

Either way, it was the longest elevator ride in Luca’s life. Staring at the gold vine design on scarlet carpet, he hopped from loafer to loafer. The bell for each floor mocked him, ringing metallically as if alarms. He counted each one. When it reached the top floor, Luca attempted to pry the doors apart quicker than they were going. He left the alarms behind, instead accompanied by the strangling beat of his heart.

The same carpet escalated him down the hall, individual steps turning into a furious tumble. Evens, evens, on the right, twelve, fourteen—

He stared at the shiny, oaken door. Luca knocked once.

No answer.

Luca checked his watch. It was midnight. Min had left the party before anyone else; Luca saw his hair sway, surrounded by a group of Chinese cronies, as he exited the palazzo. He remembered from their teen years that Min liked getting to bed early. But hadn’t Min left early because he knew Luca was meeting him? Had Luca assumed too much?

He knocked again.

This time, the motion was so forceful that the door became ajar. When Luca checked the handle, he twisted it slowly, finding the door unlocked.

Min had been expecting him.

The only lighting in the room was cast by candles. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, blots of red reflecting on the crystals from the army of small fires. Pagan scents of sage and lavender pummeled his senses.

Luca checked the apartment from beginning to end. First, the square, marble bathroom was dark and empty. No one was sitting at the oaken desk. The TV and maroon couch were empty. The bed was almost clinically made—the very first sign of life was Min’s suit from tonight hanging in the closet.

A million thoughts ran through Luca’s mind, each worse than the last. Was this even Min’s apartment? Had Min summoned him here only to stand him up? Was Min somewhere around the corner, undressed with another lover, to show Luca their summer fling from ‘81 would not continue? Why had they kissed on the balcony, then? Just to tease him?

The balcony. Luca almost jumped over the couch when he realized the second source of light was coming from the moon. Lunar light floated in from the open French windows in the apartment. Soft curtains billowed into his face, and Luca realized he hadn’t even noticed the wind chill in his hot panic.

Stepping into goddess Aestas' humid night, he gripped the twisted, gold balustrade with both hands, letting the frigid metal calm him. Min was nowhere in sight; Luca could only see and hear cars blaring away.

But then something green caught his eye. Looking to his left, a row of pots and window planters appeared. The rainbow of blossoms disappeared behind the bright orange stucco building, and Luca realized that the balcony wrapped around the building and also faced into the alley. His heart was sucked up into his esophagus, spit out at his feet, and Luca tiptoed forward.

Min was there. The same wind ruffling the curtains made Min’s silk robe billow behind him and his ponytail gently fan out. One hand was delicately poised on the railing, and the other curled around a lit cigarette.

The Italian had no idea if he was to announce his presence. Or perhaps he was to reprimand Min for making him wait. But hadn’t he made Min wait by leaving the party an hour after him? Surely he was at fault here. As soon as he had thought it, Luca discovered his traitorous feet had already taken him all the way up to Min.

Min looked down and blew a thin wisp of smoke, rising from him like a spirit.

“Took you long enough.”

Luca pouted at his uneventful homecoming. “Sorry. I came as soon as they would let me leave.”

The other man looked back to the empty Roman alley. “I did not ask. I just left.”

“They have to be nice to you,” Luca huffed. His hands were empty, and Min hadn’t offered him a cigarette. He scratched the stubble that had grown in since this morning. “Everyone has to be nice to the Chinese.”

Min sidled up to Luca without looking. His usually peachy lips, now a sanguine red in the darkness, pursed around his words. “Why aren’t you nice to me, then?”

He had been in the process of trying to cheekily take Min’s cigarette like Min had taken his cigar. But even though Min was pressed against him now, Min caught him in the act and stretched that arm far away from him.

“I thought I was,” Luca settled on, almost petulantly, staring at his missed opportunity.

“If you were nice to me,” Min began, staring at Luca for the first time, “we would have done it at the party.”

Ignoring the punctuated cloud of smoke sent his way, Luca grinned wickedly into the haze.

“What, rushed, in a filthy bathroom?” Luca teased, bringing one hand up to cup Min’s cheek. Somehow, it had only gotten softer with age. “Are we animals, or are we politicians?”

“Same thing,” Min huffed, eyeing the hand with derision in his piqued eyebrows. “Everyone could have heard us.”

He had forgotten about that potential. Luca began to sweat under his collar; he flushed not from arousal, but from his embarrassment at it. “Then, we would lose our jobs.”

“A warmonger and a glorified sports mascot,” Min singsonged. For once, he exhaled his cigarette smoke to the right, not in Luca’s face. “The world would lament its loss.”

Luca had another witty reply queued up before he slipped his hand under the collar of Min’s robe. As it traveled south across his chest, Luca swallowed his words in favor of noticing Min’s goosebumps. His eyebrows dipped in concern. “You’re shivering. How long have you been out here?”

Min shot him a look. “I was doing it for the aesthetic.”

But, only seconds after his initial outburst, Min’s expression lost all of its sour qualities and faded into something dangerously demure. The Italian summer day turned night had cooled with their moods, but things could always heat up again. “But, you are here to keep me warm. Are you not?”

“I suppose,” Luca mumbled without conviction, which put a safer distance between them than a straight answer of yes did. But, in spite of his words, Luca leaned forward and ran his hand through Min’s hair. The ponytail had been swaying back and forth from Min’s movement, just begging to be noticed. When Min made no move to stop him, Luca grabbed the elastic itself and unwound it. (Without tugging or skipping any steps—the first time Luca tried to take Min’s hair out, he took it out, and had promptly received a slap and a lesson.)

If it was the same length as that summer—the same length that had drawn him in in the first place, the first afternoon Luca’s stray volleyball had landed by Min’s body—then it would be just that. If it was any other length, Luca had a small window of chance to escape his old mindset. Luca had no idea which outcome he was hoping for.

The hair slid down like oil. Min flipped it over his shoulder with a bony hand.

It was supernaturally similar. Nipple-length, a slight bend around his jaw.

The urge to take Min to the beach pulled on his heartstrings until they would need tuned again. He could not remember a cuter version than the Min that tackled Luca with wet limbs and hair matted and tangled with sea salt. Luca had tasted the ocean and both of their sweat when the clumped pieces hit him in the face. Perhaps some stray strands poked his eye, but that was alright. After enduring the heat of the season, Luca wanted to lie on the bed and watch Min comb through the beautiful mess for an hour in dark lighting.

He’d been staring dumb for a few minutes, idly fingering Min’s (non-split) ends, but Min never missed a beat. Throwing his arms around Luca’s neck, Luca remembered well that meant Min wanted to be carried. Well, had to be carried. He got so in your face that there was no room to refuse him because Min wouldn’t give you your personal space back otherwise. Plus, in his convenient spot hidden in Luca’s neck, Min couldn’t see Luca’s face so Luca could turn him down gently in its full breadth. Instead, he curled an arm under Min’s knees and lifted him into a ball every single time.

“I actually am cold,” Min mumbled into Luca’s skin as Luca latched shut the French windows behind them. “What are you going to do about it?”

The finality of the click made him shudder. In truth, Luca was afraid to do anything. If he so much as threw Min down on the bed too fast, or too hard, it could shatter the moment, their reunion as fragile as glass. If he breathed out of turn, Min would surely turn him away. But he masked his anxiety with extra bravado, as he had done his entire teenage existence.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Luca chuckled darkly. He sat Min down on the bed gently before untying the robe and throwing it open. “Make you colder first?”

Laughing, Min shoved the cigarette into an ashtray on the side table. Now, both of his hands were free to get undressed. “Well, you better hurry up,” Min smiled, the silk falling from one ivory shoulder. It was the side that Luca had tried to mark earlier in the night. Before Luca could gloat on his accomplishments, Min grabbed Luca by the tie and pulled him down roughly, contradicting his own actions with puppy-dog eyes. “I can only be cold in your absence for so long.”

If only Luca had the foresight to not wear a three-piece suit that evening. He thought it would be safe, since the only food going to be served was cocktail sandwiches.

He had not planned on meeting with his summer fling, a lifelong fascination, having reappeared from his dreams.

When his movements slowed, Min loudly tapped on the wooden bed posts behind him, and Luca shot him an injured look. “Sorry, sorry. Can I use your hangers?”

“If it gets your ass over here quicker!” Min huffed, pouting and pulling the chinoiserie-patterned robe shut once more.

Luca couldn’t help but grin wildly. Even if he was in trouble, at least Min was reciprocating wanting him. He shimmied out of his suit, hanging each piece individually, even folding the slacks on a hanger. He was in a hurry, but he was not a man for wrinkles. Min’s eyes bore holes into him the entire time.

As soon as he could, Luca hopped on the bed in his underwear. Min’s eyes were planted firmly on his abdomen—Luca realized Min hadn’t been glaring at him, but checking him out. The new information gave him the courage to pull Min forward by the hips.

Min was resting his cheek on a fist. “Took you long enough,” he repeated. Luca peeled the robe open again, slipping it off Min’s shoulder. He ran a calloused thumb across Min’s collarbone.

“I waited for you for twenty years,” Luca chuckled, smiling softly. All the residual resentment had left him after the kiss on the balcony. If Min was here now, then that was more than enough. “And you were the one always playing games.”

“Time does not work any differently for me, you handsome idiot,” Min said, poking Luca’s nose. He inched closer and pressed his lips to the shell of Luca’s ear. “And I don’t play games when I want you.”

That was most certainly a lie, but Luca was itching. He pulled the robe all the way off, throwing it onto the floor haphazardly.

“You get to fold your clothes neatly, but mine is going to get wrinkled and dirty?” Min protested, grabbing Luca’s cheeks.

Ignoring him, Luca pushed Min onto his back. His jet black hair spread out perfectly on the pillows, framing Min’s high cheekbones and round face. The stark contrast made his skin more ethereal, his cheeks and lips pinker, especially with the vestigial moonlight. Even more, the candlelight brightened his dark eyes to a caramel color. Luca ran one shaking, gentle fingertip across a thick brow, his own brows knitting together until he couldn’t see. “Yeah.”

Min met his gaze for a while, but eventually, his cheeks flushed rose. He balked under the attention, hugging the back of Luca’s neck. He mumbled quietly, “Well, get on with it already.”

Since Min was trying to hide, Luca peppered his forehead with kisses until he poked his face back out. Min tried his hand at looking angry and pouting, but he just looked as flushed as when he drank.

“You asked for me at the party,” Luca reminded him, running a hand through Min’s hair.

Catching the other off guard, Min toppled Luca over with the flat of his palms. Min plopped himself on Luca’s abdomen. “Bianchi wasn’t supposed to tell you that!”

They both said at the same time, “He’s a dumbass.”

Giggling gleefully, Min finally pulled down Luca’s boxers in vengeance. Luca pouted and batted his eyelashes, but his legs were already pushing them off the rest of the way. After Min had thrown them to the floor and was balancing on the balls of his feet, Luca reversed their positions once more. From there, it began.

Only when they were halfway through did it hit Luca. He raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t we skipped, like, five steps?”

“Yes,” Min huffed. “You didn’t even take me to dinner first.”

His baby hairs now flipped up, Min’s position on the pillow had exposed the mole on his right cheek bone. Luca traced it with his free hand and chuckled. “Well… Maybe being apart for twenty years gives us an excuse to go quickly.”

The Chinese man rolled his eyes. “We have also done it before, you sentimental bastard.” He even rolled over on his stomach to make it easier for Luca.

Once, Luca thought, but was too craven to add aloud. Once. Why had the feeling lasted so long afterwards? What parts—and how much—of their relationship did Min remember and reciprocate?

Luca crawled forward to finish the job he couldn’t earlier in the night. Min made fun of him at first, laughing and pushing Luca’s face away. But after Luca startled nuzzling into Min’s neck, the giggles turned into something breathier.

“Go lower, you freak,” Min sighed between heaves. “I can’t wear a turtleneck in Italy in the summertime.”

Chuckling, Luca left a trail of tiny love bites until he reached Min’s shoulder blades. It was truly a blank canvas, but the night was wearing thin. Luca desperately wanted excuses for seeing each other a second time—and a third, a fourth, a fifth…

Next, even if his life depended on it, Luca could not answer the question of when their positions got reversed. Instead, he grabbed Min’s chin and wrestled the other into a deep kiss. Luca propped himself up on one elbow to try and be higher than Min. With Min still resting on his chest, he kept tilting Min’s head up until the other had to crane his neck. Their faces were crushed together, Luca nosing Min’s cheek when they needed air.

It was uncomfortable for both of them, but neither of them noticed. Luca’s lower back was going to hate him in the morning for doing so much lifting.

Though it wasn’t because Min wanted to save him a trip to the chiropractor, Min hooked his arms around Luca’s shoulders and brought Luca up with him. There was a bit of grunting; after they sat up, Min wiped some sweat from Luca’s brow and pouted. “You’re heavy.”

“Am not,” Luca grinned, knowing full well he was as wide as two Mins. Other old men’s self-concept grew with their stomachs. But the holy matrimony of his desk job and his reclining metabolism kept Luca’s ego in check. He reached a hand up, which was almost bigger than Min’s face, but it only gently stroked Min’s satin cheek.

If it was relatively short for lovemaking, neither of them said anything. They had realistic expectations for their advancing age, but with age came experience. Except for the kissing, which they had mastered early on, this time was much better than their single romp as teenagers.

The finale was nebulous and ethereal, and Min eventually pulled himself off of Luca with a shaky sigh. He floated down to the bed, kicking one foot in the air, and landed on his stomach. Of course, divined by Heaven, the entire mess had landed on Luca. But he had been too old for Catholic guilt for a long time now, so he retreated to the bathroom without thinking about it.

He groped in the dark for a towel, eventually finding a fluffy white one. Luca knew Min would be upset if he ruined the color of a good towel. After cleaning himself off, he tiptoed back into the bedroom. Min had rolled over to be on his side, pushing back the covers for later. Luca also knew that even if he handed the towel to Min, Min would still make Luca do it. He sent the towel down Min’s legs quickly.

“Gentle,” Min complained, twirling his hair around one finger.

Instead, Luca twisted the towel and whipped the top of Min’s thigh.

Laughing loudly, Min kicked Luca in the stomach a few times. Eventually, Luca managed to grab one of Min’s feet and pretended to bite it. He pushed it back at Min and gave the other a shit-eating grin.

On his way back from throwing the towel in the hamper, Luca blew out all the candles one by one. The ancient scents reignited him each time he got close to a candle, so by the time Luca returned to Min, his senses were on edge. All the lights were gone except for the full moon, which left everything outlined in a silvery glitter and combined into one confusing Surrealist painting. Not to mention, the amount of smoke in the room made his eyes water.

“Can I borrow a cigarette?” Luca whispered.

“If you want,” Min mumbled, waving a hand behind him.

Luca fished one out of the box before he even looked at it. He couldn’t read the Chinese characters on the top. Holding it up to the French windows, Luca could just make out engraved bears under a Panda Cigarette label on a sea green box. “Are these expensive?”

“What kind of question is that?” Min huffed. The grin was evident in his lilted tone. “RMB1200 a carton. The favorite of Deng Xiaoping.”

Sticking the cigarette in his mouth, Luca grabbed Min’s lighter and smiled. “God rest his soul.”

He tried eliminating his weight and climbing into bed with even some of Min’s grace, as to not bother him. Holding the cigarette in his right hand, he sidled up to Min’s back with his left. Min carelessly pulled the covers over both of them, the thinnest of silk sheets to survive the heat, only projected to worsen. Luca nuzzled up to him, eventually coming to rest behind his ear. Half of his face was buried in Min’s hair, streaming out from behind him.

Min raised his hand to move his hair out of the way, but Luca loosely wrapped a few fingers around his wrist. “It’s okay. You can leave it.” He used the chance to hand the cigarette to Min before burying his nose in the hair at the nape of Min’s neck to smell something other than piercing lavender.

They passed the cigarette back and forth in silence for long, lingering moments. Eventually, a stray cloud hid their main light source, and the cigarette created one spot of blazing red between them.

Luca stared at the burning cigarette held above Min. “Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”

There were many answers Luca could have expected. All of them he imagined were harsh, dismissing, and avoiding responsibility. But all of them were phrased in a way that made you forget all of those character traits, or never realize them in the first place. For example, Min’s jovial I just could not stay away directed at Luca earlier in the night. And his voice was always inviting, his eyes sparkling, so you would never call Min out on it.

“I’m sorry.” Min rolled over to face Luca. “I didn’t know what to do. But it was wrong of me.”

“Oh,” Luca murmured. He shook his head, blinking and blinking with his mouth agape. The penitence for judging Min’s answer prematurely washed over him greater than any Catholic guilt ever had. He traced Min’s hip bone nervously. “It’s… it’s okay.”

Min took the cigarette from him so he could caress Min correctly. Min had to take another hit before speaking again. “I was just scared. Before you ask, yes, I knew we were leaving the next morning. It is why I came over. I could not leave without knowing.”

Luca let out a heavy, metallic sigh before moving his hand to the dip of Min’s thin waist. “At least… you did. That was enough.”

“At least you got into politics,” Min muttered under his breath. “One day after coming home, I realized that if you got into politics, we could at least hear about each other again. But the next day, I woke up and remembered you had only expressed being into history, and thought we would never see each other again. It threw me into a whole new spiral.”

Min handed the cigarette back to him. “Yeah, I ended up going to school for both,” Luca shrugged. He decided not to mention he only had enough time to complete that much schoolwork because none of his friendships ever matched the intensity of Min’s. Instead, he had isolated himself—and maybe never stopped. “I wanted to be the Minister of Cultural Heritage instead of Defense. They told me I didn’t know enough about the North.”

“You could have faked it,” Min suggested.

“I could have,” Luca agreed. “But I told them that Venetians and Gauls have done fuck all for us, anyway.”

Min giggled and pinched Luca’s nose. “Oh, of course you did. You undiplomatic monster. I told you you’d never survive.”

While they were still laughing, Min wiggled forward and wrapped his arms and legs around Luca. Min’s arm was so thin that Luca didn’t even have to lift himself for Min to slip it under.

Once they were entirely entangled in each other, Luca wanted both hands free. The cigarette was burning dangerously close to the butt, anyway. He craned his neck only, as to not disturb Min, before shoving the cigarette in the ashtray.

The cigarette from a pack that apparently cost €150—it hurt a little, he had to admit. At least his box of 25 cigars only cost €375. That was a better deal, wasn’t it?

The last source of smoke in the room slowly petered out as they lied together. He ran his fingers up and down Min’s hair as he mused about prices and Min. How long were the Chinese ambassador's stays in Italy, and how frequent? How long was this going to go on for? Would he ever get to take Min back to the beach like he wanted, and exactly what beach would neither of them be recognized on? With a pang of surprisingly non-Catholic guilt, Luca knew he should have just been enjoying the moment and Min’s foreign cologne, but he couldn’t help but think about the future.

The future. Luca hit his face with a sweaty palm. Hearing the noise, Min looked up from his hiding place in Luca’s chest. “What is it?”

Luca pinched his nose bridge. He pulled Min closer to shield him from the morning. “I have to do my walk of shame in a three piece suit.”

 

Today, Min’s hair was in a low ponytail, his round face complemented by cascading strands. An outside observer would consider it casual, each piece falling from formation gradually. Instead, Luca knew Min had carefully pulled them out one by one and restarted the entire ponytail if the final product did not meet his standards. But it was still somewhere encouragingly between the painfully tight style of their first meeting and the loose locks of their love.

The restaurant someone had suggested had a curved booth wrapped around a circular table. It was uncomfortable for a group of fat old men—Min excluded—so Luca had the excuse of making more room by slinging an arm around the back of Min’s spot. It was as close as they could be in public.

“Do you smoke or drink more, Wang?” Puglisi asked, straight out of the Palazzo Madama, and the most winded of all of them. Luca watched his combover drift in the breeze caused by the ceiling fan.

Min has forgone his Chinese contemporaries to join the Italians for a Friday night out—a humble restaurant gathering with politics as part of the antipasto. It was the last dish touched, but they all plucked at it idly.

“Do I sleep or breathe more?” Min combated with a smile. He blew cigar smoke—one of Luca’s cigars—out into the sleazy, strawberry red lighting.

The circle of geriatrics laughed. Luca turned to his neighbor and exhaled smoke. “Don’t you still breathe while you sleep? Shouldn’t it be eat or sleep?”

“Shut up, Luca,” Min huffed. Everyone laughed again.

The conversation slugged along like molasses. After some more time passed, a senator that Puglisi had brought with him stood up. Was it Mancini? Or Napolitano? They both had the same wrinkly, pug face.

“We’re going to the bar until the food comes,” the mystery 50-year-old said, a spokesman for the senators. Hadn’t Mancini gotten a haircut? So then this was Napolitano. “Who else is coming?”

Luca looked at Min; Min was looking at Napolitano. “Hm. I feel like sleeping more today.” Luca nodded in agreement like a loyal dog.

Glancing amongst each other, the senators furrowed their brows. None of them understood Min’s language, but none of them would rebuke it, either.

Barring Luca and Min at the center of the the booth, everyone filtered out and headed for the restaurant’s bar. Once the silk curtains fell shut, all was quiet. It was a closed-off banquet room that they had rented, so as far as sneaking around went, it was as safe as a shark-proof cage as the other politicians swam outside.

The two of them scooted closer together.

“God, they’re so annoying,” Luca grinned, bringing his arm down around Min. “Why did we agree to come?”

“Because I am fucking hungry,” Min said, grabbing Luca’s nose. “But everything in Italy is so slow. I have been eating bruschetta for what feels like two hours now.”

Luca threw his head back, laughing. He looked down and noticed their cigars kissing, the wisps of smoke mingling into one. “The lethargy has given me some time to think.”

“That doesn’t happen often,” Min sighed, reaching for a sliced fig. “About what?”

Taking another drag, Luca exhaled slowly before burying his nose in Min’s hair. “I want to go back to the villa.”

“You still have it?” Min gasped, almost choking on the fig. He quickly backtracked and looked away. “Well, I guess that makes sense. Your family would always say for generations. It would be silly to let the vineyards go to waste.”

“Yes. My parents are still alive, but I handle all the finances now.” Luca wanted to chuckle, but when he tried to force himself, it tasted vile. “I try to go back sometimes, but…”

Min stretched his mouth into a thin line. “Out of all of our vacation homes that came out of the ‘80s economic boom… I liked our Italian one the most.”

It was a cruel reminder, as if Luca could have forgotten Min’s family’s villa right beside his own. Their balconies almost touched. It had primarily allowed Luca to serenade him with the guitar.

“But you didn’t come back,” Luca muttered, not accusingly. He ran his thumb across Min’s jawline.

“No,” Min agreed. “I did not say my family did. I actually did not have enough time to come back the next year with university things. But when I did the year after that, they had already complained of the summer heat and bought a place in the Alps. They even moved my father's apartment to the north side of Rome, as if that would help anything.”

It was not a grand explanation—but at least it did not include any fault of Luca’s. “You complain of the heat too, dearest.”

“Because my family is from northern China, you dolt!” Min huffed, shoving half of a fig in Luca’s mouth. “But I am no coward. I always planned on coming back.”

After doing his best not to also choke, Luca could finally laugh. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind Min’s ear. “So, you would visit the villa with me then?” He cleared his throat, his heart beating faster. “I was hoping we could slip away a couple weekends a month.”

“Why not, hm?” Min leaned back into Luca’s arm and exhaled. “As long as I am not your excuse.”

His normally sanguine face drained of color in an instant. After all they had already done, after all they would never be able to put behind them, sneaking around for days, Min had entered his heart again. Luca shot back on the booth. “You think I’m married? You thought—”

“You’re not married,” the other man interrupted, slicing through Luca’s jungle of conspiracies. Min tapped the ashtray. “You would be wearing your ring. You care too much not to.”

Well, it was true. Once they had divorced, Luca had taken off his ring, put it back in its box, and kept it hidden in his dresser. Not because he resented Eleni in any way—it felt wrong to lie and keep it on, but it was an even bigger sin to discard it like their marriage meant nothing to him.

But his heart was still beating out of his chest. It was better than beating his forehead for not asking these questions in the first place. “And you’re not—”

“I’m not married.” Min reached a hand up to meet Luca’s, still hovering by his face. “I never have been. If I was, I would not be doing any of this.”

“Yeah,” Luca mumbled, rubbing Min’s thumb. “I only used to be. I guess I wouldn’t either.”

It was not a pleasant thought. Even if they were married, no one would let them divorce for a male lover, and cheating was never a good option.

They squeezed their hands together in pregnant silence.

The moment lasted for hours, it seemed, as even the white noise died away. Min was the first one to speak, forming the words as smoke floated through his bee-stung lips. “Maybe if my old villa is up for sale, I will even buy it. To make us seem less suspicious, of course.”

Luca tapped the remnants of his cigar on the ashtray. “That’s not a bad idea. She and our boy can use the villa too, so we have to coordinate our visits carefully. He stays with her, but some weekends, I have to spend with him. Well—I get to spend with him. It’s a privilege.”

“That is alright,” Min smiled softly. He looked oddly fond of something. “Like I said, I do not want to distract you from anything. Family is important.”

Luca brought their joined hands down into his lap. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“Whether blood or chosen,” Min mumbled, looking down at his feet. “I wish we could start over. I wish we could be neighbors again. It’s how we fell…”

It was unlucky timing.

A cloud of noise buzzed near the entrance like a swarm of flies. Luca lifted his other arm up from Min’s shoulders to the top of the booth. Still starved for affection, they moved their hands even further down, under the white tablecloth.

The platters of food and politicians entered at the same time, one demon having summoned the other. The dregs of drinks sloshed everywhere, and the men’s loud guffaws pointedly reminded Luca he had chosen not to drink.

The circle of men filling up again pushed Min and Luca closer together than when they were trying to be intimate. Bianchi slapped Luca on the shoulder and shouted, decibels above the poor waitresses just trying to get everyone’s food to them correctly. He reeked of bitter Campari, which was the fruitiest of liqueurs that you drank if you couldn’t handle anything else.

“So, Prisco, Wang, what’d you talk about?”

Min looked at Luca; Luca was looking at Bianchi. “How much we hate each other.”

 

Since the politics had not been touched during the antipasto, they festered over their primo until they were unable to be ignored. Since most of them were from the same party, the geriatrics were proposing ideas instead of arguing, which the other restaurant patrons were immensely thankful for. Ever vigilant, Luca produced a pen from his suit pocket and took notes on the paper napkins, because the drunken buffoons would forget them come morn.

He felt like a trendsetter when he heard Min's own pen click beside him. When he glanced over, Min was writing in Italian. Well, that made sense; the other men could read it. But as he kept an eye on Min the entire time, Min only used that one napkin, even as an entire landfill spewed out of the other men's mouths. When his attention was diverted, Romulus felt the paper napkin flutter right into his lap, as if the summer breeze had willed it there. It read, “We should’ve been honest with each other from the start.”


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, one lover misses the other so badly that it hurts—admittedly, even if it has only been a few days, after more than a few years apart. That fact just rubs salt in the wound. In that case, reverie to time spent together in the ‘80s is just what the doctor ordered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, most of this chapter is one big flashback to 1981. i just didn't want to italicize the entire thing because some people find that hard to read. i just really wanted to compile as many of teen min and luca's important firsts as possible, giving a solid overview of why they would get together in the first place, and then stay together in 2001.
> 
> the prompts from the event chosen for this chapter were "Firsts" + “I was wondering when you’d get home.”
> 
> NAMES (updated from canon to fit modern times):
> 
> female rome - maria prisco 
> 
> etruria - achille renai
> 
> female eturia - adriana renai
> 
> female china - wang yaling (i actually use fan yaling in canon but you know... they're related now)

Pacing back and forth in his beloved Borgo Pio penthouse, that he paid entirely too much for, Luca smoked. The Vatican next door would be rolling their graves.

His study opened into a loft hallway lined by oaken bookshelves. Luca had left his work behind because his mind was preoccupied with something else. Perhaps putting on romantic records was not the best idea as he answered emails, but Luca had no other way to cope. If a loved one magically reappeared after twenty years, it would be natural to want to spend every waking moment with them, but that was impossible as politicians. And they were still in the same city, so there was no telling what Luca would do when they were in different countries.

Even after being thoroughly distracted by thoughts of Min, it could still get worse yet, as Luca had finally left all work behind after reading one fateful email. After the invigorating conversation at the restaurant, they were in the middle of planning a villa visit this weekend when Luca received word of an emergency meeting as late as humanly possible Friday night. It was up to God if his old bones could survive even that, but they definitely wouldn’t let him travel overnight.

He decided to pace in the loft to blow off steam, but it wasn’t working. Harrumphing in frustration, Luca slammed his fist down on the oaken balustrade.

  
_Smack_!

After soaring so high as to block out the sun, the volleyball hit Luca square in the face. He grunted and fell backwards into the sand, awkward teenage limbs sprawling everywhere.

Everyone else laughed heartily. Maria, who was on her twin brother’s team, held out her hand, but only so she could say, “Get up! You’re making us lose!”

“Winning matters more than me getting hurt?” Luca huffed, taking his sister’s offered hand. As divine vengeance, he pulled Maria down into the sand too instead of letting himself be helped up. Landing heavily on her knees, she yelled, “Yes it does!” and threw a grainy wave in his face.

“Can you two break it up?” Achille asked politely from the distant side of the net. The other team was made up of their older half-siblings. Adriana continued, “Or get out of the game, because you’re terrible!”

Luca eventually pushed himself up out of the sand. “It’s not my fault! This is my first game of volleyball. I play football; balls are meant to be on the ground.”

Maria shook the sand out of her cherry red bathing suit at the same time Luca shook the sand out of his hair. When both were decent again, Maria snatched the ball from Luca, saying, “I’ll take that, thank you.”

She carelessly flung it into the sapphire Italian sky, the white ball ready to become a cloud when Maria slapped her palm against it. The sound wasn’t that different from the sound of the ball about to break Luca’s handsome face. He winced.

Lanky Achille was mediocre at all sports. Though Adriana was short and curvy, she jumped up to two times her height during the game and hit as hard as Maria. Thus, the next time the ball came Luca’s way, he ducked instead.

The ball was too heavy to roll in sand, but Adriana had way overshot it. It landed by another lounging teenager and sent a spray of sand all over him. They all heard his distressed yelp from where they were playing.

“You’re getting that,” Maria demanded of Luca. And there was no denying a sister’s request, especially since everyone else was turned around, whistling and pretending they hadn’t just interrupted someone’s day.

After swallowing his pride, Luca jogged the short distance over to the volleyball. The youth was sitting curled under an umbrella, shaking sediment out of his book. When Luca lifted the ball out, a whole new waterfall fell on the other. He gave Luca a death glare.

Though it was full of animosity, Luca could finally see the stranger’s face. He looked to be East Asian, and though he was probably around their age, his face held a strange, timeless quality. The most noticeable thing was an oil slick of a ponytail running down his back. Any other details were shrouded in the umbrella’s darkness.

“Sorry about my siblings,” Luca mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. He had switched to English, the safest bet for any foreigner. “This is their first time having a neighbor. I’ll tell them to shorten the court. Are you new here?”

“I saw you eat shit,” the other boy reported in differently accented English.

Luca’s ears turned as red as his, Maria’s, and the stranger’s swimsuits. Funny they all picked the same color. He crossed his arms about his chest. “...Yes. They wanted to teach me how to play volleyball, but it isn’t going very well.”

“My name is Min.” He seemingly answered questions on his own time. Min pointed to the seaside villa behind him. “We moved in this morning.”

If their mother announced new neighbors at breakfast, Luca missed it, because he had a personal philosophy that Saturdays were for sleeping in until noon.

He pointed to the villa adjacent to Min’s. The line of luxury villas sat high, nestled in the limestone hills, each with personal stairs leading down to the beach. If there was one thing the rich loved, it was not sharing. They were also separated by a thick line of garrigue, brush parasites growing from the cracks in the limestone. If there was another thing the rich loved, it was being alone.

“My name is Luca. We live there in the summers. I guess that makes us actual neighbors, too.”

Nodding and listening, Min had put his open book down on his lap as Luca spoke. Reading upside down, Luca puzzled out that it was one of those Italian for beginners books. “Oh, you’re learning Italian?” he asked, flushing prematurely at the obvious answer.

Min spared him—this time. “Unfortunately, I will be spending a lot of time here, so I probably should.” The villas were either for living or renting, and Luca would have guessed the second for this stranger. Interested, he motioned for Min to show him where he was in the book. When Min leaned forward, he almost entered the light, but not quite.

“Oh, pronouns! They’re not that difficult,” Luca promised, rubbing his chin—his stubble was so hard to control in his burgeoning adulthood. “But why will you spend so much time in Italy?”

“I am the Chinese diplomat’s son,” Min shrugged unenthusiastically. “Also unfortunately, my father finally wanted us to spend his vacation time with him. But the entire summer is a dangerous first trip. If I do not like Italy, I am stuck here for three months.”

Luca smiled with confidence. “You’ll love Italy. Everyone always does.”

“Are you done flirting yet?” Maria screamed suddenly so the entire beach could hear, pointedly using English, too. An electric charge of fear shooting up his back, Luca turned around slowly with bug eyes. Maria waved and flashed a rottweiler smile. He didn’t know what was worse—letting the whole beach know, or coming up to them and embarrassing him more directly.

“Stop projecting,” Luca shot back, chuckling nervously. But when he glanced over his shoulder, Min had receded, curled up in his chair again and seemingly uninterested. It was like a switch had been flipped. Luca mumbled his goodbyes, unsure they were even heard, and shuffled over to his family.

Maria switched to Italian helpfully and said, “Took you long enough, loverboy,” and snatched the ball from him once more. She sent it over the net underhand so she could continue smirking at Luca. “Did you think we would just fry in the sun forever and wait for your slim chance of success?”

Luca elbowed her in the ribs instead of hitting the ball back. “Knock it off, Maria!” Glancing back, he was unsure if he was pleased or unpleased to find Min tuning them out. His blush was growing from his ears until the rose covered his entire face, and not from sun exposure.

After fishing the volleyball out of the sand, he threw it over lazily, more like shooting a basketball, which went nowhere. Achille and Adriana exchanged looks. When one of the half-siblings served, Maria was the one to keep hitting the ball back, for Luca was standing and staring at her. He planted his hands on his hips. “When you were obsessed with that German girl on our last ski trip, I didn’t tell anyone! And she was _German_!”

“That doesn’t mean I have to extend the same courtesy,” Maria argued, hitting the ball back extra hard. “Besides, I’m doing you no wrong.” Luca hit the ball this time because she was busy glaring at him. “I went out on the balcony around dawn and already saw him reading. He’s been doing it all day. You’ll always know where to find him, I think.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Luca huffed. It actually was, but he didn’t want to sound grateful to his sister for doing the absolute bare minimum.

Both twins screamed as the ball came whizzing past them again. It landed just behind them, and they braced themselves against the biblical wave of sand.

Before they could start yelling at each other, Achille, the oldest and weariest, stepped up and grabbed the net. He sighed.

“Do we need to switch teams?”

  
The game ended when it was time for lunch. Much like self-prophesied careless teenagers, no one had kept score, and Luca hadn’t learned very much at all.

For the first time in Luca Prisco’s life, food was the second thing on his mind. It was too sacreligious to rush or eat on the go, so he sat still, waited, and appreciated like a good son. But it was absolute agony, trying to get back outside to Min. Maria’s information could be false. If he checked too early, then Min might be eating lunch, too. If he came out too late, then only God knows all the places Min could be.

“Thank you, mamma,” Luca mumbled, kissing her on the cheek once everyone had finished. “I’m gonna go hang out at the beach again.” He hoped, anyway.

“You better pack an afternoon snack, then,” the matriarch ordered. Grabbing Luca’s beach bag from him, she threw in two containers, one of yogurt topped with fruit and one of mixed nuts—simple, finger-friendly foods. Knowing better than to argue, he thanked her again and headed out of the luxury oaken kitchen.

With the sun at its highest, Maria and Adriana were marinating in front of fans in the living room, talking about silly girl things. Achille had retreated to his painting studio upstairs, given to him under the guise that it would get painting out of his system, and he wouldn’t consider it as a career. Everyone but their father knew this to be a lie.

Either way, there were no pesky siblings to interfere this time, Luca thought as he thundered down their staircase like a heavy Jupiter. The aged wood had emerald garrigue peeking through each step, Nature attempting to reclaim her land from the rich. She couldn’t have it just yet.

As soon as his feet hit the lovingly warmed sand, Luca glanced around, aided by his straw boater hat and sunglasses. Since his accessories were so striking, he had left off his shirt, only needing his tight cherry swimming shorts, bare feet, and some good luck.

His heart deflated when Min’s throne was left empty. But upon further inspection of the beach, someone was standing along the Adriatic nearby, and Luca only knew of one person with straight hair. Anyone in Italy could have long black hair, but there was usually some measure of curls. It was why Luca had his own fabulous deep chocolate ringlets.

Jogging up from behind, Luca threw an arm around Min’s shoulders and grinned. “I’m back! Did you miss me?”

“Oh!” Min jumped out of his skin and stared at Luca with owlish eyes. “You scared me. I was thinking.”

“About what?” Luca cocked his head.

Min looked back at the aquamarine expanse of sea. It was bigger than mere children could ever comprehend. “Why would I miss you? You went inside for an hour.”

Luca pouted and mumbled. “Well, at least you noticed I was gone.”

His words were garbled. Blinking, Luca realized too late that it was the first time he had seen Min’s face in the sun. Revealed to him immediately were the details of his round face, gentle contours under Min’s full cheeks. Now turned to the side, Min had a sloped nose that was kind of… cute. Both were shapes entirely alien to Luca. His skin was glassy smooth for a teen; Luca subtly covered the hormonal acne along his jaw with a hand. As the sun illuminated Min's skin, so it did his hair, turning the ponytail into a blazing black. What Luca thought an odd commodity before turned into a fascination.

The rest of his life could have been much easier if Min had stayed in the shade.

The Italian had been pondering the other’s appearance for far too long. Luckily, Min must have shared in this sentiment, breaking free of Luca’s grasp. He did a heel-turn to resume his beach stroll, just so happening to slap Luca in the face with his ponytail in the process.

Luca made the split decision that he would follow that hair for as long as he could.

“Wait! I have food,” Luca announced, gallivanting back up to his Chinese contemporary after a temporary stupor.

Min only deemed Luca worthy of the corner of his eye. Face ahead, Min scrunched his brows. “Okay? We both just ate, or at least, I presume. Are you my mother?”

Another thing to note about Min was his extremely formal English, quite like an 18th century baroness. Maybe that was just how they taught it over there. Somehow, Luca thought that was a conscience choice Min made on his own.

“Huh.” If he wasn’t going to be looked at, Luca dropped his hand from his jaw. It was too sculpted to be hidden, anyway. “Comforting to know moms are the same all around the globe.”

The other hummed and crossed his arms. “What are you following me around for, anyway?”

“Well.” If Min was never going to acknowledge what he said, he could only combat this with brutal honesty that always got him in trouble. “I’ve kind of exhausted my resources on this beach. Rich people have many kids, but they all turn out snobby or bratty.”

“Bold of you to assume we are somehow any different,” Min smiled around his words, glancing at Luca for the first time. Luca finally noticed his eyes; under the umbrella they had been near black, but in the light, they were a dynamic and powerful dark brown. Luca now considered his muddy in comparison.

Since that approach has fizzled, Luca bit his lips. “...I can help you with your Italian. No better teacher than a native speaker themselves.”

“Oh, sure,” Min chuckled. The mixed reaction brought Luca’s emotions soaring high and then hellishly low. “That is, after I cut through all your regional slang and incorrect grammar.”

“I am no peasant!” Luca placed an offended hand on his chest. He only jested; it was the answer Min would want to hear. “That’s still an important part of the language, though. You want to be understandable and seem approachable. After we get through Standard Italian, I can even teach you more than one dialect.”

“Oh, a big traveler,” Min mumbled, splashing his feet in the water.

At least he wasn’t losing Min on this one. “Yes! My half-siblings’ dad is from Tuscany. Both of my parents are from Lazio.”

“That,” Min raised his eyebrows, “doesn’t mean anything to me yet.”

 _Yet_. Hook, line, and sinker.

“Besides, you might want a tour guide.” Luca winked. “Rimini is great. Everything you need is right in this province. And it’s always better to travel with a local so they don’t overcharge you.”

The other made a face. The wind picked up, so Min tucked a stray hair behind his ear. “Rimini was not on the list of places you say you are from.”

“...No.” Luca stared at him like a frog.

Min laughed genuinely for the first time. Only bolstered by the Mediterranean breeze, it sounded airy and silvery. “Then you admit you are of no use to me.”

At that, Min turned away from the sea, so quickly that Luca almost ran over him. Luckily, Luca stopped in his tracks just in time. There was no telling what kind of fire would rain down from the heavens if one ever hurt Min. Surprisingly, they had walked far enough to leave the line of luxury villas behind. Min floated gracefully up the beach, his ponytail bobbing, his sights set on the limestone hillside.

“Where are you going?” Luca asked, although he was already dutifully following.

“You said you brought snacks,” Min shouted behind him. “I’m hungry now.”

When they reached a patch of boulders sticking out of the white sand like Ozymandias, Min finally stopped and faced Luca. He let Luca observe the mottled gray-brown, rocky visage before saying, “Alright, get up there, and then lift me up.”

If he asked one more question out of line, it could spell death, so Luca followed along. Luca scoured for the perfect flat top for sitting. Once found, he hoisted himself, exposed knees scraping on the limestone. First, Min offered his bony hand, and Luca completed the job by grabbing him around the middle of his white tank top.

“What did you bring?” Min inquired idly when they were finally situated. Since the wind had torn his ponytail to shreds, he slid the elastic down to release his silk strands. They all needed to be out of the way if he wanted to eat comfortably. Robbing Luca of its full glory, the hair hadn’t even fallen to his shoulders before Min whipped it back up into a topknot.

The Italian only noticed he had been staring dumbly at this display when Min scrunched his nose up. “Oh… fruit and nuts. Just the basics.”

“Very healthy,” Min shrugged, and for the first time, without a hint of irony. He opened the container that Luca had handed him and picked up a strawberry slice. His face fell.

“What’s wrong? Those are fresh from our own fields,” Luca insisted, bordering on the defensive. He often took naps in the shade of his family’s apricot trees and read books in between their vineyards. Perhaps Min would be interested in one of those activities. He often completed them alone, as he did most things.

“They’re all in yogurt. The strawberry has yogurt on its back.” Min sliced through Luca with but a glare, chillier than any other weather they could have in the Mediterranean. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

With anyone else, Luca would have given them a hard time. So what? How was he supposed to know? But, breaking into a cold sweat, he stuttered, “Do you want the nuts instead?”

Min looked down at the assorted nuts and back up at Luca in one fell swoop. He held the yogurt-covered side close to Luca’s trembling lips. “No. Just lick it off.”

For some reason, it made sense in the moment. He tried to take the fruit from Min’s fingers, but Min held it firm, so he had to try to eat the yogurt from a strange angle, spraining his neck. It was like the world’s worst gelato cup.

It would not make sense when Luca was lying in bed that night and realized Min could have easily scraped the yogurt off with his finger and flicked it into the sand. It was biodegradable. Maybe birds liked yogurt.

However, it was worth it as Min repeated the process with more strawberries, figs, and cherries, all early summer fruits, and the juice slowly stained his lips sanguine. Luca’s own face blushed in response—as well as other areas of the body—as he shifted on the uncomfortable rock. He began eating his nervousness using the nuts.

Still, Luca had to ask, “Don’t you think this is kind of weird?”

Min popped a cherry into his mouth. “So, what sights does Rimini have to offer me? My father just bought a random vacation house on a whim because all of his friends were. Really, we have no idea where we are.”

“Don’t worry,” Luca assured him while chuckling at the rare moment of humility. “I said a little bit of everything. We can bike or take the train to anywhere in this little slice of Heaven; it just depends on what you want.”

“So, what do I want?” Min pressed a fig slice to his lips and stared at Luca with darkening eyes.

“I don’t know yet.” Yet. He threw the last handful of nuts into his mouth. “Riccione hosts the wildest parties. San Giovanni in Marignano has some of my family’s vineyards. Gradara has a castle that you can visit.”

“Hm.” Min made comically exaggerated thinking movements. “I think I’ll take the first.”

Luca’s eyes went wide at studious Min, standoffish Min—he had mentioned the binge drinking city first to get it out of the way. “Really?”

“Yes, but not yet.” The Chinese teen held up a finger. “You have to gain my trust. You really cannot go partying with just anyone.”

His head ached as Luca tried to puzzle out if Min meant for safety or for status reasons. He chose whatever one that would help him sleep at night. “Well, all right. I mean, it’ll always be there. The day that Riccione stops partying is the day of reckoning.”

“Oh, Christians,” Min mumbled. With both containers empty, they slid them back into Luca’s back and prepared to dismount.

Luca jumped down all at once, hoping Min was judging from above like a god and come out impressed. He hoped Min saw so much that he didn’t watch his landing and almost impaled his foot on a stone. Well, it would have been cool either way.

When it came time for Min to get down, Luca grabbed him about the waist again. It really was quite small; his hands could almost wrap around the whole thing. Before he could fantasize again, though, Min shouted, “Wait! Don’t put me down.”

“What?” Luca looked at the ground the best he could, awkwardly holding Min above him. “Do you see something?”

Min utilized the opportunity to swing around onto Luca’s back. As Luca just stammered, Min situated himself piggyback style. “No. I just don’t want to walk.”

“...Why not?” Luca asked, feigning serenity by biting his lip.

“I don’t have any shoes,” Min explained, as clear as day. “I don’t want to get calluses.”

Hunching over, Luca sighed heavily with the weight of the added cargo. Oh, who was he kidding—it wasn’t very much at all. Min felt as light as he looked.

“Okay.” Luca swallowed his vestiges of pride and prepared himself for the long haul. He marched past the outcropping and headed home. “Whatever.”

  
Sighing, Luca slid open the French windows to his bedroom balcony. He was prepared to let the Mediterranean wind currents take him. Whenever Luca didn’t want to think, he came out here to play his large _chirarra battente_ , a gift from his father after a business trip in the South. Playing the guitar was a challenging setting and activity that required all of his senses.

Luca sat down on one of the thin metal deck chairs. They had a whole table set, since the balcony ended with Maria’s bedroom. However, she read her twin brother’s moods like a book, and knew when to come out and join in and when not to.

Today was one of those days not to. He had a lot on his mind.

Tuning the strings for the song he wanted to play took the most time, until he achieved that oaky, ballad feeling he was looking for. It was a song that had been extremely popular that March. Luca didn’t consider himself part of that crowd, preferring traditional folk songs. The guitar part only reverberated softly in the background on the radio, so Luca bought the song on vinyl to hear it better. He didn’t believe in the new cassette trend yet; they weren’t as aesthetically pleasing. And though Luca disliked the popular song on principle, he learned it to impress girls in school, and he needed to practice in case it ever came up again.

As the sun set, Luca struck the first chords of the song. He whispered, seemingly to himself, “ _Voglia di stringersi e poi, vino bianco, fiori e vecchie canzoni. E si rideva di noi—che imbroglio era, maledetta primavera_ …”

“Thanks for the serenade.”

Luca’s blood ran cold as slammed his palm down on the strings, causing an ugly riff to crack in the air. In comparison, the seconds after were hellishly silent.

“What is the song?”

Luca twisted around as slow as a stone gargoyle to face the intruder. The brush separating the villas was only as high as one floor, so no matter how soft his playing was, it was silly to think Min wouldn’t see him. He could reach out and touch Min’s balcony railings if he wanted to. There was nothing to stop Min from hearing him but thin stucco walls. But in his concentration, he must not have heard Min come out.

“ _Maledetta Primavera_ ,” he mumbled, slowly turning crimson. Standing in an open button-down, Min’s pure skin was also covered in blush tones, but from the setting sun and not from embarrassment. “ _Damned Spring_.”

“You dare serenade me with something sad?” Min leaned on the railing. His black waterfall of hair spilled over endlessly. It was free for the first time around Luca, and a bit tousled. If Luca had awoken him from a nap, Min truly would kill him.

Licking his lips, Luca huffed, “Not really. It’s a saccharine and forced pop song. It’s about—”

Min waved a bony hand dismissively. “If you do not like it, then do not play it. You even sounded bored. Play me something you do like.”

Maybe it was better he didn’t explain the song was about a failed fling. People occasionally said it actually had some genuine human emotion behind it when Luca broke it down to the basics. It was a compliment, but he didn’t understand it, for he hadn’t experienced a seasonal fling.

“Okay, fine.” Still, he huffed at the insult to his singing voice. “On one condition: my parents wanted me to invite you to dinner, so I guess now is the perfect time to ask.” After each summer vacation ignoring the other kids, Luca’s one single friend didn’t go unnoticed.

Min shrugged. “That is a fair trade. I did not even know you could play the guitar.”

I did not know you had any culture in you, the second insult truly read.

“These are advanced Italian lessons—total immersion.” Sitting straight and regaining his confidence, Luca gave a shit-eating grin. Not that his regular Italian lessons were even proficient; so far, they had consisted of Min and Luca tossing away the books, lying on the floor, and sharing a stolen cigarette. It was what rich parents received for leaving their children to their own devices.

Tuning his guitar with an audience would have made a lesser man fumble. But if he was going to show off his culture to an outsider, then no mistakes could be made, lest Min leave for China not appreciating Italy for what it truly is.

Under the milky cover of twilight, Luca cycled through Italian folk songs, murmuring the lyrics into a sky as dark as Min’s hair and furiously denying the romantic undertones of all of them.

  
“Thank you again,” Min said politely, over his sweetest smile. He had put his hair in a topknot for the event. “Dinner really was just lovely.”

“Oh, Luca, I want to keep him,” his mother laughed heartily, shaking Min by the shoulders. Having been an extremely formal dinner, she had just cleared the table of their _formaggi e frutta_ , although Luca was still gnawing on a strawberry. “Please, stop by anytime! We would love to have you for dinner again. I’m so glad Luca mentioned his new little friend.”

Luca swallowed and grumbled, “I compliment you, too, mamma.”

“Thank you so much. Although, my own mother might get a little jealous. I will have to alternate nights to make everyone happy.” He patted the mother’s hand on his shoulder, smiling as if he had committed the perfect crime. After the _antipasto_ arrived, even Luca wasn’t sure of all that has transpired that evening. His siblings, not having interacted with their Chinese neighbors very much, were all staring with wide eyes at Min's indomitable aura.

Luca’s heart leapt and fell at the prospect of Min visiting him almost nightly. Well—it wasn’t him. It was his family.

“Oh yes, one should never come between a boy and his mother,” she agreed fervently. “You should take Luca with you! He needs the socialization.”

Well, if that wasn’t the worst way in the world to put an invitation. His ears burned. “Yes, mamma.”

It wouldn’t be that much of a problem, though. While Luca’s siblings had still battled for attention, even with the magnetic Min present, Min only had one younger sister named Ya, both being born in the ‘60s while the rules were still lax. His parents, too, seemed quiet and reserved.

When his own parents suggested the event, Luca had warned her and the maids of Min’s lactose intolerance, whether fabricated or not. But finding an Italian dessert sans dairy proved to be a Herculean task, except perhaps for _mostarda_ , which they all hated. If it wasn’t mentioned, then surely Min wouldn’t mind. Instead, the matriarch quickly moved onto the next course.

Luca never could have predicted that would be a problem, too.

“Oh…” Min intoned oddly after the small espresso was placed in front of him. The Italian family watched him stare into the chocolate brown pool for a long while, growing increasingly anxious with each passing second.

“Is something wrong?” Luca’s mother tittered. “It’s an after-dinner coffee, so there’s no milk in it.”

“Uh…” Min was still looking at the espresso like Hydra had sprouted more heads. He touched the white porcelain with supreme suspicion. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had coffee.”

It was quiet enough in the villa to hear a pin drop. Then, everyone gasped at once. All hell broke loose.

“What are you, a heathen? An animal?”

“Well, guys, I’ve heard they just prefer t—”

“Drink it while it’s still hot!”

Worried about their own coffees, they all demonstrated the proper technique. It would almost be like taking a shot when they finally made that trip to Riccione, but Luca couldn’t exactly say that in front of his parents. Min followed with shaky hands.

Shy of 20 years of tea-drinking had prepared Min for the temperature, but not for the flavor. Luca watched in horror as Min held it in his throat for as long as possible. When the scalding liquid threatened to spill from his mouth, Min clasped his hands over his mouth. He must have felt like he could hold it there forever until the earthy bitterness went away. But when he met eyes with Luca, they both slowly bubbled into laughter, finally causing the poor, abused espresso to escape from his lips and nose.

It was nice to see the mask fall; it was nice to know that Min had a mask at all.

“Oh!” Alarmed but not missing a beat, Luca’s mother handed Min a crimson kitchen towel to clean up. He eventually swallowed some because Luca could watch as his eyebrows scrunched up, almost in physical pain at the taste. “I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have forced it on you like that.”

“It’s not your fault.” After he had wiped the evidence, Min dotted his face with the towel politely like nothing ever happened. “I can tell the coffee is of excellent quality, of course. Very dark and rich. The flavor will just take some… getting used to.”

“I’m sure we can say the same to your bitter leaf water,” Luca interjected slyly.

One step ahead, his mother whipped him with another towel. “Be nice, young man.”

She came out with one more batch of espresso, just for her beloved Min. While she prepared their final drinks, Min lethargically lapped at the coffee. Luca watched with a face-splitting grin as Min’s expression went through the Five Stages of Grief. By the time she returned, it was all gone, as to not hurt an Italian mother’s feelings.

“ _Digestivos_ for everyone!” She placed a rainbow of fruity drinks, from limoncino to the darkest of amari. The teens were poured a smaller amount of the alcohol of their choice to at least pretend to be responsible. “I wasn’t even going to break these out, but dinner did go on for very long. I think we could all use a little relaxing after the coffee incident, too.”

“My apologies,” Min chuckled. “I could get going if it is really that much trouble.”

She turned to Luca, and Luca died inside, knowing what would happen before it even came out of her mouth. “No, no! It’s pitch black outside. We can’t kick a guest out this late at night. I’m sure Luca wouldn’t mind having his new friend over in your guys’ first sleepover.”

He turned white as a sheet. “...No, mamma, not at all.”

Everyone’s stomachs were settling with the fruity drinks except for Luca’s. He leaned back in his chair and watched his parents continue to ask Min all about his schooling. They would likely use his achievements against Luca later, but he was used to the tough love by now.

After the table was clear, all were free to leave. A phone call was placed to Min’s parents, who lived much less than a kilometer away. Apparently, that was too big of a risk for Luca’s first and only friend to take.

Luca motioned for Min to follow him out of the oak and tile kitchen, past the scarlet plush den, and up the ancient staircase. The dark wood creaked when anyone walked on it—except for Min’s light footfall, apparently.

“Just give me one of your told t-shirts,” Min said as he closed the bedroom door. “For pajamas, of course.”

Luca raised an eyebrow. He only wore boxers to bed, or perhaps nothing at all, but that definitely wasn’t happening tonight. Well, to each their own.

“Um.” Luca dragged out a bin in the very back of his closet. Since he updated his football jersey every few years, most of his old shirts were of royal azure. He threw the smallest one to Min. “Here you go.”

Min grinned and chuckled good-naturedly. “Oh, very funny. You know, our team just rejoined FIFA. We’re coming for your ass.”

“Sure you are.” Luca laughed himself. After cleaning up, he jumped on the bed. When Min started to undress, Luca peeled his own shirt off so he had something to blind him from staring. Through the cotton, all Luca could momentarily see was the sheer outline of Min stepping out of his shorts.

When Luca allowed himself to look again, Min stood in Luca’s jersey and his own boxers. Only the very bottom hem showed; though Luca was a bit shorter, he was stout and broad-shouldered, so Min was swimming in the jersey.

“What are all these for?”

While he had been busy gawking despite warning himself, Min had turned around. He was pacing in front of Luca’s oaken bookshelf, which ran the length of the entire wall opposite his bed. Despite being stuffed to the brim, one could call it neurotically organized.

Luca shrugged. “What? I like to read.”

Min picked one out at a random. But of course, they were all on the same subject. “ _The Twelve Caesars_ by Suetonius. Huh, I thought there was only one.”

“Unfortunately, no.” After twitching under Min’s scrutinizing gaze for so long, Luca hopped off the bed and opened one of his desk drawers to receive a cigarette and lighter.

However, that didn’t make it any better, as Min only only turned his attention to the papers on Luca’s desk. “Are you trying to write one of these yourself?”

Thankfully, the scribbles were all in Italian, but the manuscript’s purpose was terribly obvious.

“Maybe.” Luca used the lighting of the cigarette to hide his flushing of his cheeks. “I don’t know.”

Only the cool night air could calm Luca's visage now. “Do you want to sit outside?”

And so Min followed without protest. Light from Luca’s room spilled out like liquid honey onto the balcony, and the same went for Maria’s room. The metal table was sandwiched between the two heavens, but each teen took their seat, guided only by the circle light of the cigarette burning. The cold iron pressed on Luca’s back, and the humid night compressed his chest.

Out here in the pitch black, there was nothing to do but stargaze. And where else better than the Italian countryside, sans pollution, sans artificial lighting, sans godlessly tall buildings?

“Do you know the constellations?” Luca whispered after a few moments of silence.

“Never had an interest in astronomy,” Min shrugged, “and neither does our government. We Chinese spend all of our lives looking at what is directly in front of us.”

“...A little philosophical, but okay,” Luca huffed. Min held an expectant hand out for the cigarette, so they shared it as they usually did during their Italian lessons. Exhaling, Luca pointed his chocolate eyes to the sky. “Let me see what I can find.”

He mentally ran through two lists at once: constellations visible in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer, and constellations Min would be at least vaguely interested in. No zodiac, then, since they had their own system.

He could always defend his interests. “Have you heard of an _aquila_? Latin for _eagle_ , it carried Jupiter’s thunderbolts for the god. Eagles were also Rome’s military standard. The most famous Caesar lost a few of them.”

Tapping on the heart-shaped ashtray (purchased by Maria), Min raised his eyebrows in a challenge. “Oh, so that’s where Italians get their noses from.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Luca mumbled, rubbing the bump on his bridge, “with an aquiline nose.”

Batting his eyelashes, Min turned to his profile. He tilted his chin up to accentuate the ski slope shape. “Just different, is all.”

Luca cleared his throat. “To see Aquila, all you have to do is follow that bright star right there, Altair, and go down.” Luca leaned over to Min’s side of the table and pointed. “You can see the eagle’s wingspan if you go to the side. One side almost touches Hercules.”

Min turned to Luca and exhaled smoke in his face. “I can’t see shit.”

“...Well.” After coughing, Luca returned to his own chair and sat down heavily. “That’s okay. Aquila is at its best visible in August, anyway.”

The Italian moped sullenly until Min returned the cigarette. When he didn’t start speaking again even then, Min motioned. “Go on.”

He blinked in surprise. But with permission granted, Luca rambled on about all the other constellations he thought would hold Min’s attention. He wasn’t sure if he had been successful or not; Min kept the cigarette and looked away with a blasé expression.

“Can we go back inside? I’m cold,” Min finally complained, long after Maria’s bedroom light had gone out. Luca only realized the hour or so they’d spent outside when he felt his own goosebumps, and perhaps a few mosquito bites.

Luca yawned through his affirmative. Shoving the smoking butt into the ashtray, both teens tiptoed inside and latched the French windows shut behind them. When Luca turned around, Min had hopped on his bed.

“Hey!” Luca placed his hands on his hips.

But Min was already worming under the covers, making himself comfortable. “I said I was cold. There is room for two on this bed.”

Sleeping in the same bed after weeks of friendship wasn’t the oddest occurrence in the world. Grumbling to himself, Luca dropped his shorts to sleep in just his boxers. When he looked back, Min was in the middle of taking out his hair. Luca could watch out of the corner of his eye as the topknot unraveled into a storm of black silk.

It was pretty, but it would be all over his pillows in the morning, along with Min's cologne.

Too cowardly to back down and to stubborn to let himself, he still turned out the light and joined Min. For a small guy, Min took up an alarming amount of the bed. Luca was curled into a ball in one corner, lying on his side, back to Min. But apparently, Min wouldn’t take that; he tapped Luca on the shoulder. The Italian sighed inwardly and rolled over.

“I didn’t think your parents would like me that much,” he whispered, as if this was Confession. “You seemed like the type to have a lot of friends. I thought our first conversation was you bluffing.”

Luca grimaced. “...I have friends.”

“You don’t have to lie.” Min reached out and pinched Luca’s nose. “I don’t, either. Only liars or idiots have a lot of friends. If you stick to yourself and your interests, then you’ll only attract a small yet very special group.”

The Italian rubbed his nose after its release. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. You didn’t seem too interested, though.”

“That is what you think.” Raising his eyebrows, Min grinned. “I love history, but my own history. I needed more context for what you were saying. Or maybe I was just distracted. You were very cute, all passionate about it.”

Immediately rolling on his back, Luca huffed and avoided eye contact. He went pallid, completely drained trying to reason through what were compliments, insults, and both. “Well, I’ll try harder next time. And you can explain yours, too. I'd also love to learn more. And maybe even a little Chinese.”

“That sounds like a deal,” Min yawned out. He curled up towards Luca.

Though Min fell asleep almost immediately, Luca found it quite difficult. Min was taking up even more of the bed. His long hairs tickled Luca’s back, and his feathery breaths made Luca’s hair stand on end.

He had to know.

Darkness reigned everywhere, but the moon provided silvery outlines. Falling to temptation, Luca quietly rolled on his side to sneak one last glance at Min. If the stars weren’t making him see things, then Min had fallen asleep with his nose buried in Luca’s old jersey.

 _His_ jersey.

  
“Are we going to be able to make it home in one piece?” Min asked as their bikes finally hit the pavement of the city. To avoid biking in the dark, they had set out before sunset. Since then, it had been a peaceful joyride, up and down the rolling hills under rosy kisses of the sun falling.

“I’ve done this before, Min,” Luca huffed, even looking behind him at Min furiously pedaling to keep up. Skinny doesn’t equal fit, he would tell Min when Min poked fun at his girth. However, their fate was still uncertain. They hadn’t even pre-gamed because they were too worried about the trip to Riccione. In stupid teenage fashion, they hadn’t even considered the trip back. “Worse comes to worst, we hitchhike home and return for our bikes another day.”

“Hitchhiking!” Min said incredulously as they weaved in and out of the foot traffic. “Only tied with lovers’ lanes for serial killer activity. I thought I said you had to gain my trust before we went drinking.”

Luca turned around to give him a shit-eating grin as they entered the seafront boulevard, their final destination. “And you gave it to me!”

Of course, Min had only agreed on doing it now because people would be celebrating the official start of summer in June’s dying days. There would be more rich teens’ tent parties they could steal alcohol from, and perhaps even a few events.

Emerging like the shepherds of Arcadia, they consciously skipped heart of the concrete jungle. Although, Luca had been downtown with his siblings before, and it was not as bad as it could be. Unlike Rome, which kept a careful distance out of its founders’ thalassophobia, Riccione profited off of its nautical nature. They could hear pounding waves over the traffic, Nature reminding everyone who was in charge here. The scent of sea salt followed the teenagers in vapors.

Since biking was so popular in the Emilia-Romagna region, the boulevard had a biking lane on one side. They rolled up and down, observing the party scene on the beach below. White tents and tacky tiki torches dotted the land in front of the sea. The expanse had transformed into blushing rosewater from the vestiges of the sunset.

When Min decided the party scene was exciting enough, they found storage to chain their bikes on quickly. It was at the very front of the boulevard so they couldn’t possibly forget their location, even while drunk.

“I want some snacks first,” Min demanded when they walked across the bike lane and reached the shopfronts. The ride had removed baby hairs from his ponytail, but Min let them hang casually instead of fixing his hair this time. They cutely framed his face, Luca thought. “We won’t get as drunk that way.”

Luca agreed. Ambling up and down to see their options, Luca decided to buy two bottles of limoncino, just in case the parties below had nothing good. It was what Min had gravitated towards at their first dinner together. But when he turned around, he discovered Min had wandered off somewhere. It wasn’t particularly dangerous, but Luca sighed and went after the other. Along the way, he also grabbed a bag of pretzels.

On the short street, it didn’t take long. Min was watching the beach from the middle of the boulevard when Luca found him. When he turned towards Luca, Luca first watched the ponytail swing, and then finally noticed the gelato in his hands.

“I thought you were lactose intolerant!” Luca huffed, offended at the precautions they had already taken.

“I am.” Min licked again. It looked to be vanilla. “I have just never had gelato before.”

The Italian raised an eyebrow. “Eating while drunk is supposed to make you throw up less. I think this would do the opposite.”

“I knew you would be eating most of it,” Min smiled sweetly and handed the cup to Luca. There was no way Luca could deny that expression—as long as he didn’t think about their mouths sharing the same space, as he didn't when they shared cigarettes. 

“Didn’t you realize you could get sorbet?” Luca asked when he found it to be regular vanilla gelato as expected.

The other raised his eyebrows. “I could get what?”

Sighing for the second time, Luca slung an arm around Min’s shoulders. “...We’ll get a second cup when we’re done partying.”

Their feet hit the sand as twilight fell. Before they started approaching people, they drank through half of their bottle of limoncino for liquid courage, and ate the pretzels in between to delay a hangover. They sat on stairs and rocks while drinking because Min refused to get his shorts dirty.

“Okay,” Luca said when he finally felt ready. He had had enough of screaming to Min over the blaring radios. It was completely dark now, and they had to navigate by the light of the tiki torches, which shone like stars on the ground. Min agreed, and Luca lifted him off of the step by grabbing his hand.

Strangely, Min didn’t let their hands separate after that. He walked ahead of Luca with their fingers still intertwined; Luca raised his eyebrows, but there could be many explanations. Perhaps he was a lightweight, already drunk. They hadn’t discussed their own tolerance levels. Or he was anxious about the interactions without knowing fluent Italian as of yet. But that’s what Luca was here for.

The first group of people they approached turned out to be a group of college jocks. Yelling happily, they immediately gave the newcomers some bottles, even before asking Min and Luca’s names.

Eventually, the group of guys bonded over their vacation houses in the area—except for Luca. He hadn’t read the bottle's label in the dark. After taking the first drink, Luca stored the disgusting liquid in his cheeks as Min had stored the coffee, nodding along like nothing was wrong.

He slowly wandered off. Min noticed, and the drunk jocks did not. By the time they made it to the Adriatic, Luca spat into the ocean.

“Disgusting!” After suffering through the pale lager, Luca furiously rubbed at his lips with his sleeve. “Beer! People have no culture these days!”

Once he realized what was happening, Min broke into uncontrollable laughter. He wrapped himself around Luca’s arm as the fits wracked his body. “Oh, it’s not that bad. They seemed nice, despite the overwhelming amount of testosterone.”

The pretzels were all gone. They had been working on the gelato too while drinking the limoncino, but now, Luca finished it off to get the traitorous taste out of his mouth. He gave Min a wounded look as the other continued giggling. “This is a serious issue. You should never drink beer without a pizza present. The… yeasts cancel each other out.”

“I know,” Min promised, cooing over him like he was an upset toddler. “We don’t drink a lot of beer at home. Mostly spirits. Why don’t we find you something you’ll actually enjoy?”

As to not litter, they found a trash can to throw the beers in, along with the gelato cup. They also finished one last half of the limoncino so Luca could carry only one bottle. But, being happily tipsy, they decided to dance before visiting anyone else.

Luca had no musical talents at all. Min’s talents went instruments first, singing second, and dancing dead last. But, determined to have fun, and no one able to watch them under the cover of night, they let loose. Min and Luca swung each other around in the sand to Italian party songs. Luca could sing along perfectly, and Min tried his best by copying the other’s mouth movements. They both laughed at Min’s confusion until their stomachs ached.

Eventually, Min would have some epiphanies, his face lighting up brighter than the torches around them. “She said _sarà perché ti amo_? I remember this one!”

He reached out and grabbed Luca’s hands excitedly. Continuing to chuckle, Luca said, “Yes, she did!” They couldn’t get it off of the radio while hanging out this past month, even if Luca wanted to. It was as falsely emotional as _Maledetta Primavera_. Still, Min sung along to this one much more productively as Luca spun him around.

Perhaps that hadn’t been the best idea. They took a break from dancing when Luca became tired and Min said he felt sick. Luca had no idea what happened when a lactose intolerant person consumed milk, but he assumed it wasn’t good. Min made Luca support him with an arm wrapped about his shoulders as they set off in search of more alcohol—also perhaps not the best idea.

Everyone was more than happy to receive them and share liquers and wine. Eventually, they shared the last half of the limoncino. On the third tent they visited, the pair received word that fireworks would be going off in a nearby town to celebrate summer.

“We’ll never see ‘em from down here,” Min observed, glanced at all the tents blocking the sky.

Even through the haze of alcohol, Luca thought on his feet. “I know a cliff nearby. We can bike there while we’re still functioning.”

“And fall off of it,” Min mumbled, though he nodded his agreement. This much socializing had been a lot for both of them, previously wrapped up in their own little world for the past month.

Before leaving the city entirely, they stopped at the gelato stand again. Luca ordered the sorbet flavors that Min pointed to; although, it was possible he didn’t know what he was ordering at all.

Luckily, their bikes were still there. Luca put the cup in his bike basket and hoped it wouldn't spill on the ride to the cliff.

No matter how impaired he was—which he wasn’t really, they had only made it to midnight—the country roads were imprinted upon his mind from childhood summers. Hopefully, that would stop them from drunkenly careening off of the cliff. Min, who seemed to be more inebriated than he was, was also biking along just fine. They just had to go extremely slowly, which allowed for more conversation.

“That wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t great,” Min mused as they pedaled side by side in the pitch black night. Imitating the torches back on the beach, Luca navigated using a flashlight he always kept in the basket. He turned it on, but let it filter through the wicker so the brightness didn’t make the poor teens even woozier. “Next time, we should just drink alone together in one of our villas.”

Luca couldn’t disagree. “Yeah.”

All they really needed was each other.

Suddenly, a loud boom sounded overhead, and all they could see were the tops of trees turning into liquefied rainbows. Min gasped. “Hurry up! We’re missing them!”

Min and Luca laughed heartily as they kicked it into doubletime. It was the sheer luck of youth that, while rushing, they didn’t crash and burn.

Pragmatic even while intoxicated, Min made them park their bikes at the bottom of the hill and walk up so there was less chance of an accident. But, not very pragmatically, he also ordered, “Carry me!”

“Ugh, I’m drunk,” Luca groaned, but Min had already wrapped his arms around the other’s neck.

Once he lifted Min princess-style, he handed Min the cup of gelato so Min could at least be of some use. They—well, really only Luca—stumbled up the hill. Min graciously didn’t eat the gelato until Luca could have some. Instead, he mumbled the Italian lyrics he could remember from _Sarà Perché Ti Amo_. Fireworks thundered above with each step.

“Alright, we’re at the top,” Luca said once they reached the plateau. It was a picnicking area surrounded by a circle of trees, obviously abandoned in the wee hours of the morning.

The biggest firework yet, red and gold, exploded in the sky above.

And so did Luca’s world as Min strengthened his chokehold, bringing their lips crashing together for a fateful second.

Luca didn’t deepen the kiss, afraid to take advantage of Min, but he didn’t pull away, either. After his eyes blew impossibly wide, Luca shut them painfully tight against all that was happening, as well as his mouth. Min was doing all the work; his lips were even more of a plush velvet than Luca had thought. His lips retained the sweetness of the vanilla gelato, despite only eating a bit, and the tartness of lemons. Luca probably only oozed alcohol. The fireworks seemed to be happening off in the distance now, as quiet as if they were halfway around the world in China. His own heart thumped louder.

It was over as soon as it began. Min hopped out of Luca’s arms. When Luca opened his eyes again, Min was casually eating the rainbow of sorbet. He said, “You’re welcome.”

Luca blinked as if he had seen a ghost. Despite thinking about it previously, he almost wished either Min or himself weren’t real in this moment. “Don’t you mean thank you? For carrying you?”

“Oh, yes, I did.” Min looked just as confused as he did. “But also, you’re still welcome. Fireworks. We invented them, you know.”

Luca smiled strangely. “I know you did, Min.”

Min was shivering in only his t-shirt. Upon seeing this, Luca lead them over to sit on the top of a picnic table. He wrapped Min in his own sweatshirt, even more oversized than his jersey had been. Once it went on, Min’s ponytail was holding on by a thread, and the baby hairs had puffed up from the humidity. Luca knew his own curls were fucked, too.

After Min’s first taste of non-dairy sorbet, they shared it equally. Min looked to the sky and watched the fireworks. Luca looked to Min and watched the fireworks reflect all of the colors of the world in his hair.

  
Luca biked home in a stupor, and not a drunken one. Surely Min was saying things beside him, but Luca heard none of them. He didn’t even hear Min’s stumbling goodbyes once they reached their villas. It was just in time, as dawn threatened to break, exposing all of the boundaries they had knowingly or unknowingly crossed.

There were still a few hours of morning left. Min would sleep like a baby, living up to his porcelain skin. Luca would toss and turn as if he was lost at sea.

It was all a mundane affair from there. Luca chained his bike up in the garage. He entered the kitchen through the side door. He grabbed the nearest bottle of dark amaro, started pouring it into a glass, and didn't stop.

The whole process, he was most definitely conscious of his mother sitting at the head of the table. Anxiousness ran in the family. One of his parents tended to stay up when he was out, so he did it less and less to let their old bones rest. Hopefully, his future children would give him the same thoughtfulness.

She lowered the newspaper slowly, an act of neutrality and calculation. He had been out too long, but not gotten wasted enough to match the time spent. She eyed the full glass of Amaro in his hand now with maternal concern. “I was wondering when you’d get home.”

  
“You are the most neurotic man I have ever met,” Min berated Luca over the phone once they were both available. If he was here in the flesh, Min would grab his nose and smile. “I am also free the next weekend, you know.”

Of course. Min was always more patient; they could get to the villa eventually. They had to be realistic as adults with full-time jobs, especially with ones in the public eye. Luca let his old bones relax. “You are?”

“I always am. I do not do any actual work. I would get wrinkles.” His voice was even shriller through a mobile phone, but Luca yearned to hear it, even after all this time. Min continued, “I hope you did not do anything stupid. Just go to the meeting and pretend like you are not sneaking around with an ambassador.”

“Can do,” Luca huffed. He took a drag and looked out of the window in his study, out onto Rome, the city he loved and hated. It was not Heaven, the countryside of Rimini, but it was not Hell, either. “No, I just paced around my penthouse for a few hours and reminisced.”

“ _My penthouse_ ,” Min mimicked him while laughing. Turning sickeningly sweet, he added, “About what?”

Luca cooed. “Remember the night we kissed, _tesoro_? Under the fireworks, in a sacred grove, with vanilla and limoncino on our tongues?”

“Ugh,” came Min’s reply. Luca put an offended hand on his chest. “You were absolutely terrible at it. I was drunk, but what was your excuse?”

It had taken Luca twenty years to crack the code. The angrier Min sounded, the less he meant something. Luca chuckled heartily for a long while, almost as long as they had been apart, before he could respond. “ _Min_ , it was my first.”


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever—but does that include summer flings? When the villa is finally revisited, it brings with it more than just the childhood joy the clandestine lovers desired. What is to be done with a future that was in jeopardy since it began? The battered politicians discuss before the relationship gets too far and it's all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the prompts from the event chosen for this chapter were "Fate" + “You were the only thing I thought about the whole time.”

Two weeks later, Luca paced somewhere else—up and down his cobblestone footpath under the cover of night. Another man would have upgraded to concrete sidewalks by now, but not Luca. He listened to the clacking of his loafers on ancient stone. The secrecy of night wasn’t even necessary—they had no immediate neighbors. The garrigue still separated each villa in the Rimini wilderness, except for the balconies over the beach, which teenage Min and Luca had taken advantage of. Even if the brush did not, not many had moved in yet this early in the summer. But he still took every precaution.

Luca was halfway through pulling out a cigar for his nerves when he finally heard signs of life. A luxury motor caterwauled, and the electronic gate opened automatically, meaning it was Luca’s own driver, a middle aged native to the area. Only he had both the car and the keycode. He had been sent to pick Min up at the airport. Giovanni pulled around to the front of the villa in the velvet black convertible.

If the cigars weren’t so expensive, Luca would have thrown it on the ground. Instead, he furiously shoved it back in the metal case, though it fit worse than when Luca removed it. He wasted too much time—Min had already opened the door for himself by the time Luca jogged up to the car.

“ _Ciao_ ,” Min jested, pulling down his sunglasses and winking. The top was down as they drove, but Min’s hair was immaculate. He went around to the trunk, waving Giovanni away. “I can get my own bags. Thank you, though.”

Luca watched Min’s low ponytail swing around his dove white neck as he moved. He returned from the trunk with two large designer suitcases, waddling like a penguin nestling its egg at its feet. They didn’t even look like they fit in his tiny apartment in Rome.

“One suitcase for each day?” Luca jested in turn, raising an eyebrow as Min walked past him.

“Quiet,” Min warned.

After shaking his head, he faced the driver as Min headed inside. “Yes, thank you, Giovanni. I know the airport parking lot can be a jungle.” He slipped the slender old man his pay in a handshake.

“Only one guest, Prisco? You’re slipping,” Giovanni grinned, gaining more wrinkles as he did. “Are you losing support?”

Luca’s mouth twisted. “Not yet, anyway.”

Before that thread of conversation could continue, Giovanni followed a flood of artifical yellow light with his eyes. Luca did too, finding Min standing oddly in the open doorway.

“You better talk to your guest,” Giovanni suggested. “He looks lost.”

“Thanks.” Luca huffed, squinting. “Just put the car in the garage, please. You have the rest of the weekend off.”

Since Luca had a guest, Giovanni raised his eyebrows, but he pled no contest. They shook hands one final time, and Luca sent the reliable servant off with a friendly pat on the back.

Trying to return to Min at the front of the villa, he closed the ornate oaken doors behind him. They were extremely heavy, so each action with them required purpose and motive, like the first time Luca opened the doors for Min coming to dinner. Min now stood in the center of the lobby, back to Luca, his weekend bags on the floor beside his feet. Luca walked up and set a callused hand on Min’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Oh!” The other man whipped around, almost jumping out of his skin. Usually Luca was the one not to notice things; Luca didn’t know how Min didn’t hear the antique doors click shut. Min looked like he had been slapped with cold water, but upon seeing Luca, his gaze leveled and cooled. “I didn’t know you were done talking. You scared me.”

Luca grinned. As always, he had pointedly left Luca’s question unanswered. “Were you holding the door open for some reason?”

“No,” Min tensed, glancing at the floor. He turned back around to hug Luca before facing the rest of the villa, the rest of their past. “Well, I was just trying to process that… I just… can’t believe I’m here again.”

Slowly tapping his thumb on Min’s shoulder, Luca looked ahead. He tended to be more optimistic than Min, but… “Yeah. I can’t either,” he said oddly. His fingers twitched.

Luca made no pretenses about what this relationship was going to be—clandestine and desperate, perhaps even more so than in their youth. As far as Luca was concerned, every rich kid atoned for their natal sins with absentee parents. But now, they were figures in the public eye, a position intrinsically destined for scandal, dangling over the edge of the proverbial cliff at all times in their life. The constituents they would be betraying were the ones pulling them to safety, and, quite frankly, they were doing a terrible job.

Could love be a secret if it never left this house, and this house was the entire world? If they were the last two people on Earth?

Was confidential love inferior because a relationship needed to be consummated in the eyes of others to mean anything at all? Or did only the opinions of those in the relationship matter? Luca knew that wasn’t the case, for many couples had been broken up unwillingly by outsider parties. If Min was telling the truth, he hadn’t returned to his villa only because of his parents’ decision.

“It’s the same as we left it.”

His reverie had been interrupted suddenly. Chewing his cheek, Luca tried to deny to himself that he had any part in that, keeping every little thing Min had touched, down to Maria’s stupid heart-shaped ashtray, used on the balcony as they watched the stars. “Yeah.”

Min looked up from his hiding place in Luca’s chest. “At least on this floor. What about upstairs?”

Before Luca had the chance to answer, Min punched him in the chest. “Race you.”

He shot out of Luca’s arms like a bolt of lightning. Invigorated by this, Luca began to chase after him without even thinking about it. Min had quick feet, but Luca could jump two or three stairs at one time. He felt as if he was flying up the stairs on angels’ wings; with Min around, the joint pain in his knees completely disappeared. Only the stairs were creaking this time, instead of Luca’s old bones.

After grabbing the hem of Min’s shirt at the top of the stairs, Min still eluded him by slapping Luca’s wrist until he let go.

They both giggled as mischievously as schoolgirls.

“Min!” Luca singsonged. After reaching the upstairs first, Min was nowhere to be seen. He must have been hiding somewhere, lying in ambush. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

The door to Luca’s childhood bedroom was slightly ajar. Of course; there was nowhere else to go. No matter how despicable they were, they never interrupted their siblings’ privacy. Not that they were Good Samaritans—the less they were seen, the less rumors could fly.

Luca tiptoed down the hallway, which proved difficult on the hardwood flooring. He walked into his bedroom without looking behind him, standing in the middle of the room with his back exposed to danger. “Now where could he be?”

“ _Aha_!” Min hopped out from behind. Gasping, Luca let Min jump up and hold onto him like a leech. Luca knew Min was there; Min knew he could never knock a man like Luca over. Laughing wildly, Luca threw their conjoined mass onto his childhood bed. The springs complained in protest as they bounced up and down.

Min and Luca almost cried tears of joy as they rolled around on the bed while tickling each other. Luca gently took out the other’s low ponytail, watching as Min’s hair exploded over the white sheets as they messed around.

“What did you think was gonna happen?” Luca asked once he had finally caught his breath. But his words came back too fast. One time, when Luca hovered above him, they became too top-heavy and rolled off of the edge of the small bed.

Luca landed on his back with a heavy thump. Since he had been grabbing Min’s hands, Min came down with him, his elbows digging into Luca’s ribs. He also got a handful of hair in his mouth.

The Italian’s incessant giggling broke off into a pained wheeze. “I think we need to sleep in my parents’ room.”

“We get to use the big boy bed?” Min teased.

Luca brushed some of the dangling hair behind Min’s ear. The curtain of night separated them from the rest of the world. “Well, we barely fit in my bed as teenagers.”

The other pinched Luca’s nose. “Well, I took up all that room on purpose.”

“I know,” Luca began to laugh again. “I’ll have to get you for that!”

As soon as he propelled himself up, Min shrieked and jumped out of his grasp. He was as skittish as a newborn fawn. Luca groaned, and he wasn’t even standing before Min had fled from the room. He could hear Min’s silvery laugh floating up from the stairwell, just as it had haunted Luca for their twenty years apart.

There was no use in thinking like this right now, not when Min was so close at hand. Luca sprinted out of the room to follow Min downstairs. When his foot hit the very first step, the aged wood creaked and gave him away. He heard Min giggle at the bottom of the staircase, and when he glanced up, Min’s ponytail disappeared around the corner in a wisp of night.

As Luca skipped multiple stairs at a time, Min jumped down into the sunken lounge in the middle of the den. It was only two steps, but the rich had to prove their wealth through unnecessary means, like Luca’s Roman ancestors tiling grand mosaics on their floor, only to have everyone step on pure art.

If they didn’t have the grace of youth about them, both of them would be injured at the hands of their own stupidity by now. Min danced around the perimeter until Luca caught up to him, his lungs clawing at his ribs for freedom after a career of smoking like a chimney. However, it paled in comparison to the beating of his heart. They both felt like Maenads. When Min twirled in front of the couch, Luca finally lunged forward so both of them fell onto the plush scarlet cushions.

“You got me!” Min finally gasped, kissing Luca on the nose. They rubbed their noses together as Luca jokingly held him down on the couch.

“This is my revenge!” Luca giggles childishly, pinning Min’s wrists back. After feeling a little guilty, he stroked the soft skin lovingly. “What shall I do to you?”

Hair spread around him like a dark halo on the cushions, Min gave Luca puppy dog eyes. “Won’t you cuddle me?”

“That’s hardly a punishment,” Luca mumbled. He rolled over on his side to let Min snuggle into his chest. Even if he was shorter, Min let Luca feel taller by curling up into a ball and letting Luca rest his chin on the other’s head. It made Luca happy too; from that position, Luca could cradle Min and play with his hair. As soon as they were comfortable, Luca gently removed his ponytail and set the elastic on the side table.

Stepping back into this space threw Luca into an odd state. As far as the den went, it was quite ugly. A jarring mix of ‘70s and ‘80s interior design. The shades of red in the room, the couches and curtains, didn’t exactly match. The faux stone covering the fireplace was tacky and… faux. The wood, despite its rich color, was almost blocky to the point of brutalism.

Luca had the money to fix the decor ten times over. However, he dare not touch it.

After a moment of silence, Luca murmured, “Actually, I might be the one getting punished. This might hurt in the morning.”

“It could hurt even more,” Min giggled secretively. “The night isn’t over yet. What do we have to do to get to that point?”

The Italian blushed as he wrapped a strand of Min’s hair around his finger. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“No. Is your kitchen stocked?” Min sat up with interest. Eating out was not even entertained as an option. They were under self-imposed witness protection.

Humming an affirmation, Luca sat up as well. “Giovanni buys groceries with my money a day or two before I arrive. I also have fresh produce from my vineyards and orchards.”

That was good enough for Min. After pulling Luca up by the hands, they bounded into the kitchen as if it was an adventure. In this cream and terracotta-tiled kitchen, Luca’s mother made them dinner every other night, they figured out how to whip up things for lunch, and smoked on the black marble counter-tops. Now, it was their turn to make dinner.

“I think cooking is my favorite part of being a single man,” Luca mumbled over the simmering of the stovetops. “I helped Eleni, but now, no one can make fun of me for being good at it.”

“Their loss!” Min chuckled over the metallic chopping of the knife. He was cutting up the tomatoes for the panzanella, a summer dish Luca’s mother learned from her first husband. “Cooking is an important life skill. They are the manchildren for not learning.”

Watching the bread soak in the water, the main ingredient, Luca bit his cheek. “How soon did you have to learn? Did you…” Unable to finish, Luca fiddled with breadcrumbs.

Min tilted his head. “I learned immediately because I did not plan on ever dating. Much to the chagrin of my parents, I have stayed true to my promise.”

Luca nodded slowly. He had almost forgotten about their telepathic connection.

Incorrectly or not, Luca always thought he had cared about their relationship more. In the worst case scenario, he was the only one to care at all. And to think, he had been the one to hopelessly hold onto social norms, trapping himself in a marriage with the first woman he became good friends with, but he did not love. Not in the same way as Min. Never in the same way as Min.

There was a hazy ringing in the back of his head. Luca thought his tinnitus was back until Min shoved the timer in his face, and the ringing became clearer. “The bread is done soaking.” Min softened the blow with a kiss on Luca’s cheek.

After finishing the tomatoes, Min also cut up some onions and carrots. The rhythmic sound of metal on wood followed Luca around and reminded him that, for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t cooking alone. Min hummed a vaguely familiar song, and Luca watched him. Any outside observer would only notice a scene of pure domesticity.

And what was so wrong with that?

They turned off all of the artificial lights and lit his mother's collection of candles instead. Once they sat down at the table, all was quiet. It was a simple dish, only one course. Tomorrow night, when they had more time, Luca was sure they’d cook enough to feed the Carabinieri.

“I did kind of miss olive oil,” Min shrugged as he drizzled some on his panzanella. “At least, your family’s olive oil.”

Luca pushed a bottle across the tabletop. “And my family’s wine?”

“Oh, you’re trying to get me drunk,” the Chinese man chuckled. He poured glasses for them both. “And you will soon succeed.”

They ate and drank in the privacy of Luca’s own villa, over the army of small fires from the candles, talking even later into the night. Eventually, the wine lulled both men into a sense of sleepiness. Luca got up and blew out all the candles before they could forget about them and burn down their one sanctuary. The shade enveloped them lovingly.

Min made Luca carry him up the stairs, because of course he did. Kicking his pale, slender feet into the night air, they both hummed Min’s song from earlier. Luca still couldn’t place where it was from, he mused as they shuffled down the hallways. He felt the walls in the darkness so they wouldn’t fall and break their necks.

Once they hit Luca’s parents’ bedroom, it was supposed to be a straight shot. Their melancholy longing had melted into childish excitement, and now, it was supposed to dip back into the pool of adult lust.

They began to make out after Luca opened the door. Jumping out of Luca’s arms, Min quickly undid Luca’s short-sleeved button-up with deft fingers. They made a desperate shuffle backwards until Min’s legs hit the bedframe, and Luca gently pushed him down.

As soon as Min’s head hit the white comforter, he yawned.

“I’m kind of tired. And drunk. C’we do this in the morning?”

Already rolling his shoulders from carrying Min up the stairs, Luca had to agree. He flopped down heavily and face-forward on the bed beside Min. He also yawned. “Yeah.”

Min giggled at the sudden intrusion and pinched Luca’s exposed cheek. “Thanks, baby.” He yawned again. “Hey, d’you still have your guitar? I wanna hear a lullaby.”

“ _You’re_ not a baby,” Luca mumbled into the sheets. Grinning uncontrollably, he wrapped his hand around Min’s wrist near his face. “But yes, I can play something for you.”

Both men undressed. With no suits or bourgeoisie in sight, they threw their clothes on ground unceremoniously. After that, Min retreated to the bathroom to get ready for bed. With no such obsessive skincare routine, Luca utilized the time to grab his his _chitarra battente_. It was old and beat up by now, much like his body, but Luca loved it still. He also grabbed the largest of his old football jerseys, desperately hoping it would fit Min. From their childhood, he knew the other always conveniently forgot his own pajamas when sleeping over. Even in his packed bags, there were unlikely to be any.

Indeed, when he entered, Min was naked except for his boxers. Both men chortled incredulously as Min’s face filled with sentiment, an expression reflected in Luca’s own. The moonlight made Min’s cheeks shine with a youthful glow. “Sure, I’ll try it on.”

Thankfully, the jersey slid on like a glove and fell below the hem of his boxers. When Min poked his head out of the royal blue and smiled, Luca’s heart lurched dangerously. Was it still déjà vu if it had actually happened before?

They jumped on the bed again at the same time. Luca sat up against the headboard, and Min wrapped himself around Luca while lying down. Running his fingers through Min’s locks, Luca thought of what to play.

Min closed his eyes under the comforting weight of Luca’s hand. He pouted. “I have a song stuck in my head, but I can’t place what it is.”

“I can.” Luca breathed in as his heart threatened to burst out of his chest. It was the song Min had been humming all night, revealing itself like a benevolent ghost.

It was fate.

His fingers tuned the guitar automatically, without Luca even having to look down. He launched into _Maledetta Primavera_ for the first time in twenty years.

“ _Voglia di stringersi e poi, vino bianco, fiori e vecchie canzoni. E si rideva di noi—che imbroglio era, maledetta primavera_ …”

How was Luca so naive as to think he didn’t relate to the song, would never relate to the song, as soon as Min walked into his life? Had he predicted his own future? Had the people around him who said he sang it with true emotion? Did the gods destine them to have a summer fling?

Did the gods also destine them to turn the fling into a lifelong relationship, though? Not many people received the chance. That was all the more reason to act. Perhaps, despite their naysayers, it had been more than stupid teenage lust.

It was just like Luca had always known.

A feathery breath tickling his arm woke Luca out of his reverie. After murmuring the ‘80s ballad in rounds, he was only weakly plucking at a few strings. Thinking had taken all the energy out of him. He now felt as tired as the drunk Min, sleeping while holding his Italian lover. Well, Min had wanted a lullaby. Luca set the guitar aside so he could gently stroke Min’s hair again. His hands trembled with deep emotion.

When a breeze floated in from an open window, Luca discovered that his face was wet.

He waited for Min’s arms to loosen around him. After an hour of sleep, they finally began to fall onto the comforter. Luca wasn’t a skinny man by any means, almost as soft as the bedding by now, but he managed to wiggle his way out of Min’s grasp.

The first step was to grab the cigar case out of his discarded pants. A few teardrops hit the metal exterior, and the noise seemed loud enough to wake the dead. He anxiously looked back through the watery haze to see if Min had stirred. When the other remained asleep, Luca lit the cigar that he had almost used before Min’s arrival. His hands had stopped shaking when they were in the heat of the moment. Now, his dexterity struggled again as he was left alone to drown in his feelings.

Quietly sliding open the French windows, Luca stepped outside. He navigated his parents’ old balcony by the light of the moon. Since it was attached to the master bedroom, this balcony was the size of his and his half-siblings’ combined. When his parents were away, Min and Luca would use it to stargaze properly, lying on the floor to gaze at the entire sky, larger than the teenagers could ever comprehend. Since the floor was cold tile, Min used it as an early excuse to cuddle up to Luca. Luca used that as an early test to see if his jumble of teenage hormones meant anything or not.

And oh, did they. But Luca probably had too many back problems now to continue reclining on stony surfaces.

He tipped his head back to keep the tears from falling.

Leaning on the balustrade and smoking his expensive cigar either took minutes or hours. The moon didn’t change positions, and neither did Luca, for as long as he was there. He allowed his tears to fall into the garden below so they at least served some purpose. If the gods did always want Min and Luca to meet again, he had to repay them before their fate changed. If fate was even real, it had a tendency towards fickleness, much like his demanding lover. Much like his lover’s silvery laugh, the moonlight followed him around if he paced.

“Come back to bed, baby.”

The same arms, skinny arms that were burned into Luca’s memory, wrapped around him again. Luca was a fool to think that the loss of body heat wouldn’t wake Min up soon enough. His own personal heater, Min joked. The Italian’s natural heat was Min’s favorite part of friendly sleepovers, especially on cool Mediterranean nights.

“Sorry.” Min was burrowing his head into Luca’s back, but he changed his mind when he smelled the cigar. Plucking it from Luca’s hand, Min took a drag for himself. Their clouds of smoke foreshadowing the morning fog that hugged the emerald Italian hills. “I was just thinking.”

Fate had it that his one sign of weakness, a sniffle, was covered up by Min whining. “That lullaby was for both of us. You figured out the song.”

Luca smiled sadly. He took his cigar back from Min’s lethargic fingers as the Chinese man yawned. “Yes, I know.” Did Min even remember where _he_ remembered it from now?

“Then, you did enough thinking for one night,” Min mumbled into Luca’s salty skin. “Y’can do the rest in the morning.”

The Italian felt himself being pulled back by the hips. Min dragged him through the French windows, which Luca hadn’t heard open again, but which he had to close himself. Then, they tumbled back into oversized bed together in a mess of limbs and hair.

Luca would have minded if they needed covers, but it was too hot and humid for that. Instead, fated to be close, they pressed their sticky skin together and let the very act of touching sooth them. They hadn’t slept together since their even more desperate rendezvous after the party in the palazzo. Luca let out a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding. He was happy to be together, but he couldn’t help but think about what was to come.

They passed the cigar back and forth to get rid of it before sleep took them. When Luca went to pass it the next time, Min was already breathing softly into the crook of his arm. While finishing off the cigar himself, Luca watched the calculated rise and fall of Min’s chest. His fingers itched, and Luca smushed the end of the cigar in the bedside ashtray so he could bury his hands in Min’s hair. He didn’t even have to close his eyes; in the dark, it was all too easy to imagine that they were teenagers again.

Luca didn’t know if he was grateful or disappointed that Min didn’t see him cry.

  
After they finished breakfast, Luca had a clear mental image picked out for that Saturday morning—smoking and driving the yacht while Min hung off of him, loosely wrapped arms around his broad shoulders. Their skin tones were still strikingly different, light and dark, wet and sparkling in the lazy Italian sun. Min was holding Luca’s drink for him before setting it down to steal Luca’s captain hat, place it on his own head, and make Luca chase him around the deck.

However, none of it was fated to happen.

He tried driving first but soon had to turn the reins over to Min. He had taken his bonine too late, apparently, and the seasickness pill hadn’t kicked in yet.

Plus, the water was choppier than usual today. Luca needed to sit in the corner of the boat and hide if he was to survive this trip.

“You’re such a baby,” Min laughed over the soft purring of the luxury engine. Luca sat on the floor by his feet and held Min’s cigarettes and ashtray for him. Min might have looked cooler, smoking in his sunglasses and sleek bun, than Luca ever could. He kept one hand on the wheel and one placed loosely on his hip. “You have not gotten over your fear of the ocean in our 20 years apart?”

“Sharks!” Luca barked. For that, he was stealing one of Min’s cigarettes for himself. “ _Jaws_!”

Min wasn’t facing him, but Luca could tell he was rolling his eyes, for Min’s head always came with it. So dramatic.

“I have not seen that movie, nor do I care to,” Min huffed, exhaling smoke as he talked. “Ashtray.”

Luca lifted the ceramic bowl from the floor and held it out for Min. “We better not meet anyone else out here. Technically, you don’t have a boating license.”

Min tapped his ashes on the side without looking. “I have used my diplomatic immunity for worse.”

Luca looked at him strangely. “I’m almost positive that’s not how that works. Like, at all.”

The Chinese man gave him a secretive smile. “Hm. Where should I park?”

Since Italy’s only islands in the Adriatic were much further south, the two men were finally, utterly, truly alone in the world—their only wish had been granted. The closest boat was but a blotch on the horizon. Out here, it was just them and the gods of nature. And politics did not apply to nature, so instead of being defined by their occupations, they were just two men in love.

And what was so wrong with that?

When the waters calmed further out to sea, they were surrounded by sapphire glass on three sides. Except for the final side, which held the distant green of the shoreline. Min parked the yacht there so Luca had less of a nervous breakdown.

“Did your seasickness pill kick in yet?” Min turned around as they slowed to a halt. He finished his cigarette off in the ashtray. “I probably can’t lift the anchor.”

“Yes.” Setting the Min’s box of cigarettes and ashtray aside, Luca stood up with confidence. He paled immediately. “...No.”

Min giggled and kissed Luca sweetly. “We can do it together.”

Luca moved slowly, taking tiny steps to get to the front of the deck. Min tried his best to hand the anchor up to Luca so Luca didn’t have to bend over. When he finally threw the shining metal over the side, the Italian sighed heavily. He swallowed the feeling of nausea in his throat. “Well, that’s the only thing I can do for an hour.”

“You can watch me swim.” Min kissed him again and grabbed Luca’s hand before heading for the walls of the yacht.

Luca let their hands dangle between them. Their matching red bathing suits made them look like the red thread of fate. “But baby, there are still sharks.”

“I’m more worried about the sharks in our jobs.” Hauling himself up onto the railing, Min perched on the edge of the yacht. “Both versions have to catch us first.”

With that, Min plugged his nose and bent backwards to fall into the water.

The Italian smiled. Luca watched as the pure glass finally rippled where Min had broken the surface. It was calm everywhere else; Luca could get used to the sea if he sat here for a while.

He felt a growing anxiety, though, when Min did not break the surface again. “Min?” Immediately, Luca threw himself against the railing until he almost fell overboard. “Min?”

There were bubbles before there was the man. “You’re no fun!” Min pouted between spitting out water. His hair cascaded down his back and melted into the sea in an oily wave. He pushed the baby hairs back from his face. “Ah, I lost my ponytail elastic.”

Luca put a hand over his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. “Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“I was trying to prove to you that it’s not dangerous. It was a prank, and I came back!” Min argued as he floated around.

The other sighed and hung his head. “I love you, Min, but you accomplished the exact opposite.”

Min grinned mischievously.

Luca folded one of the white leather deck chairs open. Leaning in luxury, he kicked his bare feet up on the railing and had a perfect view of Min.

When he did a graceful backstroke, Luca watched the very top of his slender chest. After a while, Min twirled around in the blink of an eye and switched positions for no reason other than dramatics. While completing a breaststroke, Luca watched instead Min’s hair float with the water. When the silky locks were wet, they were darker than even the night sky, setting Min apart from the blaze of blue.

Though the sun beat down on both of them, Luca endured it for the sights. He could never pass up how the heavenly light made the water around Min sparkle and illuminated his form. Anything was worth it as long as Min was involved.

Luca hummed the song from last night—from their last twenty years. “You could be a mermaid, you know,” he murmured into the Mediterranean haze.

It was meant to be lost, but unfortunately, the gods carried it forward on a breeze. The Chinese man gave a knowing grin. “Well, I don’t very well feel like one! My fingertips are all shriveled up already.”

“I would tell you to get out,” Luca laughed as he stood up to lean against the railing again, “but you didn’t even let me put the ladder down before racing off like a child.”

“Then get me out of here with those big, strong arms of yours!” Min teased.

“Alright, alright…” Luca knew it was a trap as soon as their fingers touched, and Min went red from trying to control his laughter. Sometimes, he was impossible to read; sometimes, it was entirely too easy. Resigned to his fate (now that the bonine had kicked in), Luca let Min tank him overboard with a surprisingly loud _hi-ya_!

“You are a child!” He spit out his own amount of water and pretended to be upset. “You could have at least spared my beautiful hair!”

And for that, Min splashed him.

They chased each other by swimming laps around the yacht—which wasn’t easy, considering its large size. Luca’s lungs threatened to give up a few times, but that’s right when Min would kick water in his face again, indirectly or directly. They guffawed like fools until any people on the mainland could hear them.

After Min’s first hour of relaxation, they played games in the water for a second hour. When Luca finally caught Min in their game of tag, Min moved forward to reward him with a kiss, and spit water in his face instead.

Luca covered his face with his hands. “Stop it, you baby!”

The sun rose higher in the sky. When Min was tired of his skin shriveling and skin warming, he swam around to the front of the blindingly white yacht again. “Now, how are we going to get back up without a ladder?”

“You should have thought of that before pulling me down with you.” Luca raised his eyebrows as he paddled in place beside Min.

“I did. Get down.”

Though he had been politely requested, Min started pushing Luca into the water by his shoulders, anyway. Just as he thought Min was trying to drown him, Min hopped onto Luca’s back before sitting on his shoulders. “Onward, noble steed.”

If Luca hugged the side of the yacht, Min could easily haul himself up by the metal railing. Once he stood safely on the deck, Min took one look at Luca in the water and said, “Yeah, not trying with that office chub. I’ll let down the ladder.”

“Fair enough.” Luca laughed at his own expense. He watched as Min opened that part of the gate and released the pin. The mirror was shattered once again as Luca rejoined his lover on board.

To soften the blow, Min greeted him with a fluffy white towel and a smile. The sea hadn’t been very cold, but now out of it, the Mediterranean breeze nipped at the vestiges of water on their skin. They stood huddling close for a while as their bodies adjusted to the new temperature.

Luca saw his chance to enact his revenge when Min wrapped his beach towel around his head. In a flash, Luca reached up and rubbed the fabric back and forth all over Min’s hair while laughing maniacally.

“Stop it! You're the manchild!” Min couldn’t help but laugh as he whipped the towel down to find the mess underneath. Drying flyaways were poking out every which way, some was tangled, and some even had static.

He had miscalculated. Too busy reveling in his work, he had forgotten Min was a hair taller and could do the same thing to Luca. Attacking Luca with his own towel, Min rubbed it all over the halo of curls as they both burst into laughter. He could only be stopped when Luca snuggled him in a bear hug.

“No!” Min lamented. “I will not be defeated!”

The Italian moved the towel away to paw at his frizzy, flattened curls. Wetting them without his products was one thing, and this was another. “My beautiful curl pattern! What have you done?”

No love was lost; it was gained. A day outside in the humidity would have ruined them, anyway. Out here, they were allowed to be refreshingly imperfect.

“Come on,” Min laughed once he was fully satisfied. Luca let the other break free of his arms, and Min turned to him with a shit-eating grin. “Let’s go sunbathing on the upper deck until lunchtime.”

Dry except for their swimsuits, it only made sense to strip and hang them on the railing so the heavens could work their magic. They kept the towels in case anyone happened to pass by.

They ascended the stairs to the raised seating area, surrounded by matching white leather couches. Luca’s father even had a dry bar put in as the centerpiece. If he was hosting friends on the yacht, Luca and Min hid away upstairs, drinking cocktails that they had made completely wrong. Once, when Luca’s drink burned his inexperienced throat too much, he didn’t lean over the edge far enough and ended up spitting vodka all over another politician on the lower deck.

Well, it was what all politicians deserved, really.

While Luca was lost in reverie, Min had fished some sunscreen out of the storage under the couch cushions. The sharp sound of the cap opening brought Luca back to the present—which was finally just as sweet as his past. “Come here, baby.”

Putting an offended hand on his chest, Luca gaped. “I don’t need sunscreen. I’m It—”

“Shut up.” Min closed the distance himself and slapped a handful of sunscreen on Luca’s back. “You’re already going to get lung cancer, so you better not get skin cancer, too.”

He could have said the truth—that Min would too. His pack a day was no better than Luca’s Cuban cigars. Instead, Luca smiled and said, “Thanks for looking out for me, I guess.”

There was nothing wrong with a free massage. He returned the favor when Min was finished with him.

“Let’s lie down on the floor together,” Min suggested.

Luca sighed. “My chest hates me right now, and my back will hate me later.”

Despite his protests, he followed Min down, and they ended up canoodling on the nautical blue carpet. Luca used one fluffy towel to casually cover their private parts, and Min gave him an incredulous look.

“Were you sainted in our twenty years apart?”

“I tried, but they wouldn’t accept me,” Luca mumbled, “after all of the things that I’ve done.”

Min pinched Luca’s aquiline nose. “I better be the _only_ one that you’re doing.”

To escape Min’s clutches, Luca laughed, rolled around on his back, and stretched out. He took the towel with him and left Min uncovered. Finding no need for such shame, Min wrapped himself around Luca’s arm and smiled alluringly.

Once they were situated, it would take divine intervention to move them. They lied in comfortable silence with the symphony of nature—the waves, the seabirds, and the gentle hum of the sun—serenading only them.

Min closed his eyes and rested, and Luca kept his gaze on Min. A few stray hairs tickled Luca’s cheeks like angel feathers. Eventually, Luca raised his other arm to caress Min’s face. The sun and salt made his skin shine as fresh as a baby’s. Even in the harsh sunlight, no wrinkles were visible.

Maybe there really was something to doing no work.

Luca began to run his thumb across Min’s lips. They were a cheerful red from the honeyed strawberries they had fed each other for breakfast. Though Min didn’t open his eyes, he smiled and pursed his lips into the touch. Luca would be found guilty of Min’s plump lips being his favorite feature. Or was it Min’s hair? Luca pondered the question as they lied intertwined.

Trying to make up for lost time, they relaxed for as long as humanly possible. They floated in and out of consciousness, mumbling sweet nothings and humming other songs for the ‘80s.

It was the most peaceful Luca had ever been in his life, even more so than in his golden youth.

As the late morning went on, however, the sun became a cruel mistress, burning their skin instead of nuzzling it.

Min sat up slowly. His black hair had absorbed the heat, and the tips ran across Luca’s bare skin like friendly fire. “It’s getting a little hot. Can we go downstairs?”

“Oh, I could put the awning up,” Luca suggested.

“No, I meant _down_ downstairs,” Min winked. “We could make it steamy instead of hot.”

The Italian tried and failed to hold his laughter in at the terrible pick-up line, if that’s even what it counted as. “Min, those bunks are even smaller than my childhood bed.”

Leaning over Luca, Min’s hair framed a mischievous smile. “That’s the challenge, you coward.”

  
Luca finally received his wish when they returned to shore. After a quick shower—that turned quite long after they began fooling around—they returned to the master bedroom. They were cleaning up and redressing before they could head downstairs to make dinner together, something they had looked forward to since last night—and perhaps forever.

Luca threw on a pair of old shorts, and Min donned a chinoiserie robe like he had their first night together as adults. Knowing Min’s habits, however, they were not the same, and he had bought many more. Luca hopped on the bed, and Min perched himself at the vanity to repair his cultured appearance after a day in the wild.

Dimming the lights, the villa was prepared to be bathed in shade, except for the romantic red sunset that seeped in through the French windows. A humid haze emerged from the adjoining master bathroom, along with the sage and lavender of their soaps. In the silence, the ceiling fan whirred above neurotically. The only other sound happened when Min ran the brush through his long and luscious locks.

Luca finally received his wish of watching Min comb through his hair in dark lighting again. It was not after a trip to the beach; they were still too nervous to go somewhere that public. If they were spotted, there was nowhere to run and hide on a long strip of sand. He twiddled his thumbs.

The idea had seemed wonderful at the time. But now that the gods has granted his wish, Luca was alone in the bed, left to his emotions. The idea wasn’t all it was cracked up to be as Luca’s anxieties slithered into the room under the cover of twilight.

Min working through the beautiful mess was still a sight to see. Dutifully biting his cheek until it stung, Luca tried to hold it together until Min was done. His face fell, and fell, and fell. Though Min had missed his tears last night, fate had it that he overheard Luca’s beleaguered exhales.

“That was quite the sigh,” Min observed as he worked on the very last knot. With his hands in his hair, he made his way over to join Luca on the bed. “Are you continuing your thinking from last night? Thinking is dangerous for you, you know.”

Luca looked up. When Min saw the Italian’s forlorn face, he himself turned as pale as a ghost. His hands fell from his hair as he climbed on the bed to hover over Luca. “What’s wrong?”

“Yes, I was continuing my conundrum from last night,” the Italian mumbled, “when I was crying in the balcony.”

Though it wasn’t his fault he didn’t know, Min’s eyes went wide with a volatile mix of guilt and surprise. “Did I do something wrong?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t rightfully know.” Feeling himself turn watery again, Luca grabbed a cigar off of the nightstand instead of looking at Min. After placing the end in his mouth, his sausage fingers fumbled with the lighter for what felt like an eternity until Min took responsibility. He held the lighter firmly until Luca’s cigar sparked and caught flame. He took the a drag, fresh like the summer's first strawberries, before he spoke. “Do you think fate is a stupid thing?”

“Of course not. It’s part of my culture. _Yīnyuán hóngxiàn_ ,” Min huffed, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. “The red thread of fate. Although, the original lovers in the myth _do_ only recognize each other because of a scar from him throwing a rock at her.”

The humor fell flat. There was another unspoken issue in the myth: marriage. They had to be able to get married first.

He thought his confidence was already on the floor, but now, it was in Hell. Luca tensed. “Okay, the thread brought us together again. Do you think we can ever recreate what we had as stupid kids?”

Min looked on warily. He didn’t steal Luca’s cigar this time. “...You’re philosophizing. This is what you get for marrying a Greek.”

“But we might never be like that again,” Luca whispered fervently, as if a last breath.

Min stuck his nose up to Heaven. “We are not as old as we will be.”

“We’ll never be as young as we once were.” The cigar smoke escaped him. “Did it even mean anything back then? I think it did, but does the universe? Do our fates agree?”

“We were friends first and a one night stand second,” Min said emphatically. Luca’s hands were raving in the air like mad, so Min grabbed his wrists to gently remind him to knock it off. The cigar smoke placed a gray veil between them. “It meant something then, and it means something now.”

The honesty, brutal and comforting all at once, threw Luca completely off of his axis. He stared dumbly with wet eyes and quivering lips.

“Besides, who would still miss a good fuck after twenty years?” Min gave a paper thin smile. “Actually, it wasn’t even that good.”

Luca was soaring high and crashing dangerously low. His nausea returned as if they were on the yacht again. Now, less then a day from returning to normality as the weekend drew to a close, they were navigating the much crueler waters of life. “Be serious, Min.”

“I am! We didn’t know anything back then.” Both men blushed at the memory of their embarrassing experimentation. “No one wants to actually be a teenager again except lovers and fools, which are one and the same. I don’t care what age we are, as long as we’re together.”

His mind still on the yacht, Luca tried to wave the cigar around as Min pinned his wrists. “What about when we _do_ age, though? When I get my fated lung cancer?”

“Then I would take care of you,” Min shrugged, as if it was the easiest decision in the world. Perhaps he had thought about this as much as Luca had. “I don’t actually mind the idea of getting old.”

Luca bit his lips. “Even when you finally look your age?”

“I’ll nev—” Mouth hanging open, Min stopped and sighed. He grabbed Luca’s hands instead of his wrists and lowered them. Min waved the cigar smoke away to stop hiding behind a smokescreen. His eyes were clearer than ever before. “Yes, even when I look my age. Besides, that’s retirement time.”

“You already don’t do any work, baby,” Luca cooed. With their fingers intertwined, Luca ran a thumb across Min’s knuckles.

Min tilted his head, showing off his newly brushed and heavenly shining hair. “No, but we will retire together.”

Now, that was something to picture, Luca thought as his heart began to race like a Maenad. It was as soft as one of Min’s demands could ever get, and it was not one Luca could deny. Retiring to the villa, retreating from public life, their one torment. He pictured them tending the vineyards personally until their old bones ached. Min lamenting over his first grays while Luca was already fully salt-and-pepper. They could read in front of the fireplace and cook every meal together. They outlived their neighbors and danced up and down the beach, as if they were the only two people in the entire world. Except for Eleni and their son; they could visit, even in move in next door if they wanted, and Luca could finally have the whole family he always wanted.

“I wouldn’t mind dying either,” Luca continued the age conversation. “But not like this, surrounded by people, unable to be alone with you. That’s my greatest torment: the fact we can’t be alone.”

“That’s from a movie,” Min chuckled. “You don’t speak like that. And right _now_ is the only time we'll be alone for weeks to come.”

Taking another drag from the cigar, Luca smiled. “ _The Exterminating Angel_. It’s in Spanish, which is close enough to our godly Italian.”

As they both laughed, Luca finally relaxed his body and leaned back into the pillows. Min fell on top of him like a feather and trapped the Italian in the tightest hug they’d ever known. They both released a sigh they didn’t know they were holding and whispered their vows of I love yous.

For a long time, for as long as it took night to fall, Luca buried his face gratefully into Min’s hair, the hair of their love. Min ran his hands up and down Luca’s aching back, though age did not define them anymore. The heat of the cigar in Luca’s hand nearby soothed them both.

Luca kissed Min’s forehead when it was as dark inside as the shade of Min’s umbrella on their first day. Though he wasn’t afraid of retribution for breaking the silence anymore, he still murmured sweetly. “Well… I guess it’s all planned, then. The future.”

He had finally said the two words that always bothered him.

“Yes,” Min smiled wide like a kid in a candy store. “If we suffered through twenty years apart, then fate should owe us twenty years together.”

If it all went well, if the gods were benevolent. For once, Luca believed in the heavens with confidence. Fresh tears had already budded in his eyes while they were hidden in Min’s hair, but now, Luca allowed them to flow freely in front of Min—just as he should have been for the rest of his life. The Italian politician, now a simple man in love, sniffled in catharsis. “You were the only thing I thought about the whole time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course, this is only a thin slice of the AU. in this chapter, Luca and Min are actually correct about how the AU ends—happily, of course! they don't get discovered sneaking off with each other during their political careers and retire to Luca's villa to live out the rest of their days together. some other stuff happens, such as actual Luca and Eleni interactions and Andrea (Romano) appearing as their son. Min even gets his own son at one point. however, this is long enough already. i would only add to this fic if there's a demand for it! please comment if so! comments hold all of the power!
> 
> that's it, and thanks for reading!


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